Structure in music and language

There are many compelling reasons to pursue an analogy between music and language. The literature on the neurological relations between music and language cognition is growing (e.g. Patel, 2008a; Peretz, 2006). However, what we wish to understand is whether this analogy can be pursued on a conceptual level, and specifically in the terms described in the previous chapter. To pursue this conceptual examination more closely, we will have to begin to distinguish between what parts of music and language contribute to the two sorts of co- existing mental states. One aspect is the way in which musical and linguistic utterances are actually put together. The keen reader will note that in the following discussion of structure in music and language, I have assumed that there are constituent elements of which musical and linguistic utterances are composed. In language, these constituent elements are formatives and words, combined into phrases. With regard to music, I will later develop the view that there is a grouping principle, largely dependent on perceptual constraints, which demarcates similar structural units. For now, we will assume that music too is composed of discrete elements (such as individual notes of varying duration) that are combined to form musical utterances.

Music and language, it is often claimed, share certain structural similarities. Without yet examining the precise nature of these structural similarities, we should consider examining the idea that organised structure exists at all. This is hardly a controversial issue with regard to language: some orderings of English words make sense to English speakers, and others do not. Analogously, it would appear that in music, some orderings of notes seem to make musical sense, and others do not. It would seem therefore that there are acceptable and unacceptable ways to combine constituent elements in both communicative media. Violating these criteria of acceptability results in music or language that ‘doesn’t make sense’ to speakers and listeners that are fluent in the language and music in question.35 This implies that the sounds of communicative media are perceived and processed structurally, and violation of structural principles results in a lack of comprehension with regard to the utterance. In music, it would appear that there are many ways to combine sounds in making comprehensible and acceptable phrases. However, anyone who has listened to a toddler bashing randomly at a piano keyboard should be aware that there are also sequences of sounds that make no musical sense whatsoever.

The fact that the order of constituent elements is significant to the comprehensibility of communicative acts allows us to say that both music and language have a syntactic dimension (on a particularly weak understanding of the term ‘syntax’). In other words, the ordering of the constituent elements that make up a linguistic or a musical utterance has an impact on the comprehensibility of that utterance (that is, our ability to make sense of it). At this point, we are not going to make any assumptions about the precise nature of this syntactical dimension, such as what precisely counts as well-formed with regard to syntax in music and language. All that needs to be noted for present purposes is that, with both musical and linguistic utterances, there are examples of well-formed and ill-formed statements. An ill-formed sentence is incomprehensible: we may be able to find out what the words mean, but if they are haphazardly combined, we will be unable to make any judgement regarding the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

With an ill-formed utterance, syntax makes absolutely no contribution to our identification of a string of sounds as a communicative act. Take, as an example, a sentence in a natural

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Another way to illustrate this is to imagine yourself as a blind anthropologist, encountering an undocumented society for the first time. It is conceivable that you would be able to distinguish musical from other (say) ritual sounds, because of the presence of basic syntactical principles in musical statements, even if you are not familiar with the intricacies of the musical style. These principles are the focus of the fifth and sixth chapters.

language that is simply a random jumble of words, with no ordering whatsoever. Unless it is well-formed by complete chance, the listener will have to depend on other cues to identify the string of sounds as an unsuccessful communicative act. Recognisable words with agreed- upon meanings are used in sentences like “Man dog bite”, and their combination in the act of elocution accounts for us identifying this as a communicative act of some kind. But the syntactical ordering of the words is ill-formed, and does not contribute to communication in any way.36 Analogously, a random sequence of sounds that does not subscribe to syntactical principles will also not be recognisable as music. To identify a sequence of sounds as an attempt at a musical communicative act, we usually would have to rely on other cues. The example of a toddler bashing away at a keyboard is a paradigm case – the only thing that would link this sequence of sounds to the idea of a musical statement is the fact that the sounds are coming from a well-known musical instrument.37 Ignoring intentionality, the need for a performer, and the aims of communication for the moment, a random sequence of sounds in nature can only be heard as a musical statement if they happen to satisfy syntactical demands in some way (for example, a regular pulse, identifiable pitches in a well-formed order, and so on).

One may note that there is a grey area with regard to the well-formedness of statements: sentences that are, strictly speaking, ill-formed, but we are still able to correct in our heads. An example is simply omitting words from a sentence, such as “Charlie fell down hole”, which is missing an article such as ‘a’ or ‘the’. Here, we are still able to figure out meaning to a large extent, namely, that Charlie has fallen down some or other hole. However, with “Man dog bite”, we cannot work out much beyond the fact that the sentence is about a man, a dog, and either a noun or a verb in the form of ‘bite’, if there is no pragmatic context to help us. We cannot identify a subject and a verb phrase, and hence we cannot attribute an action to either the dog or the man. We will return to this grey area, because something analogous is to be found in the syntax of musical statements: statements that are not quite well-formed, but recognisable in terms of musical syntax.

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Unless, of course, there is an appropriate pragmatic context. For example, the ill-formed utterance ‘Man dog bite’ is perfectly intelligible if there happens to be a man with a canine-inflicted injury present. In such a case, the listener will deduce from the context that what was intended was a communicative utterance that amounts to ‘The man was bitten by the dog’.

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Another example is musical bottles. In that case, there are orderings of hitting bottles that are syntactical and understood as music, and others that are just heard as noise.

There is another feature of syntax that is notable at this point. Syntax in language cannot be perceived if the apprehender does not know the meaning of any of the words in the sentence. It is impossible to judge a sentence using French words as well-formed or not unless you are familiar with those French words. The French sentence may be of subject-predicate form, with a noun phrase and a verb phrase, but this knowledge is of little value to someone confronted with words whose meanings are completely alien. What words constitute the verb phrase, and which ones the subject? It is impossible to tell without some tentative knowledge of the lexicon of the language.38 We will return to this feature when we consider semantics below, as it holds interesting implications for our discussion of music.

We have not ventured deeply into the differences between music and language in terms of the precise nature of their structuring principles, but we have stated firmly the premise that both language and music boast some sort of syntax (i.e., that the ordering of constituent elements makes a contribution to the comprehensibility of the utterance). We shall investigate syntax in more detail in later chapters, when our focus shifts to the details of musical syntax. We will also then briefly consider two claims that are often made, especially in evolutionary musicology: that the structuring of music is hierarchical, and that the structuring of music is recursive. Both of these claims deserve mention, but cannot be handled unless we are on firm conceptual ground. They are, however, of importance. Recursion is earmarked by some as the single distinguishing feature of linguistic computation (Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch, 2002), and it would be of interest to see if and how it could be realised in musical utterances. For now, we will proceed to consider the issue of semantics.

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The reader should note that I have stopped short of saying that we must know the meaning of words in order to perceive the syntactical features of an utterance. Indeed, it is often the case that the syntax gives us the very meaning of a word. For example, the meaning of ‘bite’ is determined by the syntax in the following two examples: (a) “That’s a nasty bite” and (b) “He can bite you”. In (a), ‘bite’ functions as a noun (an injury); and in (b), ‘bite’ functions as a verb. Note also that the meaning of the sentence as a whole contributes to cases that would otherwise be equivocation: (c) “I need to draw some money, so I am going to the bank” and (d) “I want to catch a fish, so I am going to the bank”. Nonetheless, there are ambiguous sentences, such as (e) “Bill saw the boy with a telescope” (example from Gillon, 2008:376). Here, it is syntactically unclear whether Bill used a telescope to see the boy, or whether Bill saw a boy who had a telescope in his possession. In such cases, we are likely to rely on the context in which the sentence was uttered to interpret the intended meaning.