1 Rhythm and Phrasing in Language and Music (part 1) Dicky Gilbers & Maartje Schreuder Pap er avail ab le on http:/ /w ww .l et.rug.nl/~gil be r s / pa pe r s http :// ww w.l et.rug.nl/~s chreud r/ F ac ulty of Arts Depa rtment of L inguis tics P.O. Box 716 9700 AS Gro ning en T he Nethe rl an ds Structural resemblance between language and music • Claim: every form o f tempor ally o rdered behaviour is structured the same way • Claim: insig hts of music the ory can hel p out in phonological issues • Rate adjustments in lang uage a nd music: rhythmic variability Outline • Jacken doff & Lerdahl ( 1980) point out the resemblance between the ways both linguists and musicologists structure their research objects • Ler dah l & Jackendof f (1983) A Generative Theory of Tonal Music , MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Synthesis of linguistic methodology and the insights of music theory Jackendoff and Lerdahl • Descri ption of how a listener (mostly unconciously) constructs connections in the perceived sounds • The listener is capable of recognizing the constructi on o f a p iece of music by considering some notes/chords as more prominent than others A Generative Theory of Tonal Music cf. Language • Our c ognition thus wo rks in a way compa rable to how a reader divides a text (often unconciously too) into different parts • The resea rch objec t is st ructure d hierarchi cally and in each domain the important (heads) and less important (dependents) constituents are defined by preference rules • Preferen ce rules determine which o utputs, i .e. the possible interpretations of a musical piece, are well-formed A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1983) Preference Rules • Preferen ce rul es ind icate t he o ptimal interpretation of a piece • Prefer ence rule s, however, a re not s trict claims on outputs • It is even possib le for a preferred interpretation o f a musical piece to violate a certain preference rule as long as this violation leads to t he satisfaction of a more important preference rule
