Musicology and Linguistics: Integrating the Phraseology of Text and Tune in the Creative Process

Abstract

The implications of analogous features of music and for theory and method in disciplines of musicology and linguistics have long been of interest to scholars. In a paper on Sounds and Prosodies, originally published in 1948, J. R. Firth (1957b, 121-138) contends that the musical aspects of language previously recognized as speech attributes belong to a syntagmatic system he wished to designate as This system includes properties of syllabic structure such as initial, final, and medial characteristics, number and nature of syllables, stress, and tone, all of which are features of syllable or groups of syllables and their junctures and are, therefore, distinct from vowels and consonants that delimit syllable. In Firth's view, analytical procedures suggested by syntagmatic nature of in invites comparison with theories of melody and rhythm in music. He notes: Writers on theory of music often say that you cannot have melody without rhythm, also that if such a thing were conceivable as continuous series of notes of equal value, of same pitch, and without accent, musical rhythm could not be found in it. Hence musical description of rhythm would be the grouping of measures and a measure the grouping of stress and non-stress. Moreover, a measure or a bar-length is a grouping of pulses which have to each other definite interrelations as to their length, as well as interrelations of strength. Interrelations of pitch and quality also appear to correlate with sense of stress and enter into grouping of measures. (128) He continues: We can tentatively adapt this part of theory of music for purpose of framing a theory of prosodies. Let us regard syllable as a pulse or beat, and a word or as a sort of bar length or grouping of pulses which bear to each other definite interrelations of length, stress, tones, quality--including voice quality and nasality. The principle to be emphasized is interrelations of syllables, what I have previously referred to as syntagmatic relations, as opposed to paradigmatic or differential relations of sounds in vowel and consonant systems. (128) In another paper, Modes of Meaning, which followed three years later, Firth gives further clarification of his theory of prosodies. He notes that Alliteration, assonance and chiming of what are usually called consonants are common prosodic features of speech.... Such features can be so distributed as to form part of both in prose and verse (1957a, 194). Although Firth addressed his observations largely to scholars in linguistics and philology in 1948 and 1951, when modern linguistics was searching for a new theoretical framework and analytical procedures for dealing with phonology, I was struck at that time by possibility of their application to stylistic and textual analysis of songs and not just to phonology, for which they were intended. I found his concept of artistic prosodies and analogy between rhythms of sounds of and those of music intriguing, as were distributional and positional criteria implied in syntagmatic approach and search for interrelations. The idea that analytical focus should extend beyond small units (such as syllable and word) to groups and larger configurations (such as the piece or collocation emphasized in both papers) that tally with particular aspect of music theory that Firth quoted earlier in support of his analytical position also made sense to me. It seemed to me, therefore, that there was much to be gained from close application of such analytical concepts to materials of musical traditions that recognize and capitalize on analogous features of sounds of and music in construction of rhythm and melody--traditions such as those of Africa in which, to paraphrase Firth, syllable is a pulse or beat, and a word, phrase, or sentence is a carrier of a group of pulses that bear definite interrelations of length, stress, and tones or mirror contour of speech tones and intonation in melodies, traditions that do not operate with bar lines because they rely on oral transmission but which nevertheless maintain specific timing principles that regulate groupings of syllabic pulses or their placement in relation to differential of long and short, stress and nonstress, in speech stream. …