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There is a popular example of a syntactically ambiguous phrase in Russian sometimes used as a linguistic joke:

Возьмём предложение Косой косой косил косой косой и попробуем определить все возможные варианты частеречной разметки для повторяющихся слов // М. Копотев, Введение в корпусную лингвистику

How do I parse this phrase?

Quassnoi
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michael_best
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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – Quassnoi Feb 16 '19 at 23:19
  • @shabunc please see if it works this way. Thanks! – Quassnoi Feb 17 '19 at 19:04
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    thank you for editing question michael. @Quassnoi I always trust you expertise and when you believe that something worth reopening - feel free to just reopen. I can not recall a single case when I was in disagreement with your decision. – shabunc Feb 17 '19 at 20:32
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    Literally nothing of substance has changed, but two mods got an opportunity to ostentatiously exercise their powers and validate each other. Moderatorial ego is the bane of smaller communities. Nobody benefits from it, not even the mods themselves. Self-importance masquerading as doing important administrative work is one of the oldest ways humans are tricked by their own psychology. – Nikolay Ershov Feb 19 '19 at 16:54
  • In Czech it could be Kosé kose kosilo kosou kosou. Or even Kosé kose kose kosilo kosou kosou. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 20 '19 at 14:59
  • @VladimirF Never heard it once in the 14 years I lived in the Czech Republic, can't google up a single instance now. – Nikolay Ershov Feb 22 '19 at 11:47
  • @NikolayErshov no wonder, I have never heard it either. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 22 '19 at 11:51
  • @VladimirF I think you ought to make it clearer that this is your own invention. And frankly I don't quite see its relevance. – Nikolay Ershov Feb 22 '19 at 11:57
  • I thought someone might find it interesting, not you apparently. You are welcome to flag it if you find if off-topic. Frankly, you could have done that straight away without this useless and clearly off-topic discussion. – Vladimir F Героям слава Feb 22 '19 at 12:18

1 Answers1

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"A cross-eyed hare mowed with a crooked scythe."

косой: adjective, "crooked, skewed, leaning, cross-eyed"

косой: nominalised adjective, same meaning, a folk epithet for a hare

"Cross-eyed one" is what a hare may be called in a fairytale, or in hunters' banter.

How do the two "cross-eyed"s in a row work? Compare (for lack of a better example I can immediately think of): "a forsaken Forsaken wandered about". (The second time referring to the race from the Warcraft universe.) Or, "Gollum grabbed his precious precious".

косил: "mowed, was mowing"

косой: same adjective as before, this time in feminine instrumental

косой: instrumental of коса, "scythe"

It's a popular joke commenting on the opacity, and overlapping, of Russian grammatical endings, but it usually doesn't have the hare in it, because it starts to get a little bit too contrived. The version I grew up with is косил косой косой косой "a cross-eyed [person] mowed with a crooked scythe".

Nikolay Ershov
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