1932

Abstract

This review presents a highly selective survey of connections between music and language. I begin by considering some fundamental differences between music and language and some nonspecific similarities that may arise out of more general characteristics of human cognition and communication. I then discuss an important, specific interaction between music and language: the connection between linguistic stress and musical meter. Next, I consider several possible connections that have been widely studied but remain controversial: cross-cultural correlations between linguistic and musical rhythm, effects of musical training on linguistic abilities, and connections in cognitive processing between music and linguistic syntax. Finally, I discuss some parallels regarding the use of repetition in music and language, which until now has been a little-explored topic.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031220-121126
2022-01-14
2024-05-13
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/linguistics/8/1/annurev-linguistics-031220-121126.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031220-121126&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Acevedo S, Temperley D, Pfordresher P. 2014. Effects of metrical encoding on melody recognition. Music Percept 31:372–86
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bernstein L. 1976. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  3. Besson M, Barbaroux M, Dittinger E 2017. Music in the brain: music and language processing. The Routledge Companion to Music Cognition R Ashley, R Timmers 37–48 Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bidelman GM, Hutka S, Moreno S 2013. Tone language speakers and musicians share enhanced perceptual and cognitive abilities for musical pitch: evidence for bidirectionality between the domains of language and music. PLOS ONE 8:e60676
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bigand E, Parncutt R. 1999. Perceiving musical tension in long chord sequences. Psychol. Res. 62:237–54
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bregman AS. 1990. Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  7. Briefer EF. 2012. Vocal expression of emotions in mammals: mechanisms of production and evidence. J. Zool. 288:1–20
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Brown DE. 1991. Human Universals. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Cauldwell R, Hewings M. 1996. Intonation rules in ELT textbooks. ELT J 50:327–34
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Conklin D, Anagnostopoulou C. 2001. Representation and discovery of multiple viewpoint patterns. Proceedings of the 2001 International Computer Music Conference479–85 Ann Arbor: Michigan Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Cox A. 2016. Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press
  12. Cutler A, Foss DJ. 1977. On the role of sentence stress in sentence processing. Lang. Speech 20:1–10
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Daniele JR, Patel AD 2013. An empirical study of historical patterns in musical rhythm: analysis of German & Italian classical music using the nPVI equation. Music Percept 31:10–18
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Dauer RM. 1983. Stress-timing and syllable-timing reanalyzed. J. Phon. 11:51–62
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Deutsch D. 2006. The enigma of absolute pitch. Acoust. Today 2:11–19
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Dilley LC, McAuley JD. 2008. Distal prosodic context affects word segmentation and lexical processing. J. Mem. Lang. 59:294–311
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Dingemanse M, Blasi DE, Lupyan G, Christiansen MH, Monaghan P. 2015. Arbitrariness, iconicity, and systematicity in language. Trends Cogn. Sci. 19:603–15
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Dubey A, Keller F, Sturt P. 2008. A probabilistic corpus-based model of syntactic parallelism. Cognition 109:326–44
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Fedorenko E, Behr M, Kanwisher N. 2011. Functional specificity for high-level linguistic processing in the human brain. PNAS 108:16428–33
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Fenk-Oczlon G. 1989. Word order and frequency in freezes. Linguistics 27:517–56
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Filippi P. 2016. Emotional and interactional prosody across animal communication systems: a comparative approach to the emergence of language. Front. Psychol. 7:1393
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Finkbeiner R, Freywald U. 2018. Exact Repetition in Grammar and Discourse Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
  23. Fischer A 1994. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature, Vol. 7: Repetition Tübingen, Ger: Gunter Narr
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Fitch W. 2006. The biology and evolution of music: a comparative perspective. Cognition 100:173–215
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Frazier L, Munn A, Clifton C. 2000. Processing coordinate structures. J. Psycholinguist. Res. 29:343–70
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Gabrielsson A, Lindström E 2001. The influence of musical structure on emotional expression. Music and Emotion: Theory and Research P Juslin, J Sloboda 223–48 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Gingold H, Abravanel E. 1987. Music as a mnemonic: the effects of good- and bad-music settings on verbatim recall of short passages by young children. Psychomusicology 7:25–39
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Gjerdingen R. 2007. Music in the Galant Style New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  29. Gordon RL, Fehd HM, McCandliss BD. 2015. Does music training enhance literacy skills? A meta-analysis. Front. Psychol. 6:1777
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Grabe E, Low E 2002. Durational variability in speech and the rhythm class hypothesis. Laboratory Phonology 7 C Gussenhoven, N Warner 515–46 Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Granroth-Wilding M, Steedman M. 2014. A robust parser-interpreter for jazz chord sequences. J. Music Res. 43:355–74
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Halle J, Lerdahl F. 1993. A generative textsetting model. Curr. Musicol. 55:3–23
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Hannon E. 2009. Perceiving speech rhythm in music: Listeners classify instrumental songs according to language of origin. Cognition 111:403–9
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Hanslick E. 1986 (1891. On the Musically Beautiful: A Contribution Towards the Revision of the Aesthetics of Music trans. G Payzant. Indianapolis: Hackett
  35. Hayes B. 1995. Metrical Stress Theory: Principles and Case Studies Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  36. Hayes B, Kaun A 1996. The role of phonological phrasing in sung and chanted verse. Linguist. Rev. 13:243–304
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Heffner CC, Slevc LR. 2015. Prosodic structure as a parallel to musical structure. Front. Psychol. 6:1962
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Hockett CF. 1960. The origin of speech. Sci. Am. 203:5–12
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Huron D. 2006. Sweet Anticipation Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  40. Huron D. 2016. Voice Leading: The Science Behind a Musical Art Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  41. Huron D, Royal M. 1996. What is melodic accent? Converging evidence from musical practice. Music Percept 13:489–516
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Johnstone B 1994. Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Norwood, NJ: Ablex
  43. Jones MR, Moynihan H, MacKenzie N, Puente J 2002. Temporal aspects of stimulus-driven attending in dynamic arrays. Psychol. Sci. 13:313–19
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Juslin PN, Laukka P. 2003. Communication of emotions in vocal expression and music performance: different channels, same code?. Psychol. Bull. 129:770–814
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Kamalski J, Sanders T, Lentz L 2008. Coherence marking, prior knowledge, and comprehension of informative and persuasive texts: sorting things out. Discourse Process 45:323–45
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Kelly MH, Bock JK. 1988. Stress in time. J. Exp. Psychol.: Hum. Percept. Perform. 14:389–403
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Kirkham NZ, Slemmer JA, Johnson SP. 2002. Visual statistical learning in infancy: evidence for a domain general learning mechanism. Cognition 83:B35–42
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Kivy P. 1980. The Corded Shell Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press
  49. Koelsch S, Rohrmeier M, Torrecuso R, Jentschke S 2013. Processing of hierarchical syntactic structure in music. PNAS 110:15443–48
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Lee C, Brown L, Müllensiefen D. 2017. The musical impact of Multicultural London English (MLE) speech rhythm. Music Percept 34:452–81
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Lerdahl F. 2001a. The sounds of poetry viewed as music. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 930:337–54
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Lerdahl F. 2001b. Tonal Pitch Space New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  53. Lerdahl F, Jackendoff R. 1983. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  54. Lerdahl F, Krumhansl CL. 2007. Modeling tonal tension. Music Percept 24:329–66
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Levy R, Jaeger F 2007. Speakers optimize information density through syntactic reduction. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems B Schölhopf, J Platt, T Hofmann 849–56 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Liberman M. 1975. The intonational system of English PhD Thesis, MIT Cambridge, MA:
  57. Liberman M, Prince A. 1977. On stress and linguistic rhythm. Linguist. Inq. 8:249–336
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Lipiczky T. 1985. Tihai formulas and the fusion of ‘composition’ and ‘improvisation’ in North Indian music. Music. Q. 71:157–71
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Madsen SM, Marschall M, Dau T, Oxenham AJ. 2019. Speech perception is similar for musicians and non-musicians across a wide range of conditions. Sci. Rep. 9:10404
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Margulis EH. 2014. On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  61. Mattheson J. 1739. Der vollkommene Kapellmeister. Hamburg, Ger: C. Herold
  62. McGowan RW, Levitt AG. 2011. A comparison of rhythm in English dialects and music. Music Percept 28:307–14
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Mendelssohn F. 1878 (1842. Briefe aus den Jahren 1830 bis 1847 von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy C. Mendelssohn Leipzig, Ger: Hermann Mendelssohn
  64. Meyer L. 1956. Emotion and Meaning in Music Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press
  65. Monahan S. 2013. Action and agency revisited. J. Music Theory 57:321–71
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Palmer C, Kelly MH 1992. Linguistic prosody and musical meter in song. J. Mem. Lang. 31:525–42
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Parbery-Clark A, Skoe E, Lam C, Kraus N. 2009. Musician enhancement for speech-in-noise. Ear Hear 30:653–61
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Parncutt R. 1989. Harmony: A Psychoacoustical Approach Berlin: Springer
  69. Patel AD. 2003. Language, music, syntax and the brain. Nat. Neurosci. 6:674–81
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Patel AD 2005. The relationship of music to the melody of speech and to syntactic processing disorders in aphasia. The Neurosciences and Music II: From Perception to Performance G Avanzini, L Lopez, S Koelsch, M Manjno 59–70 New York: N.Y. Acad. Sci.
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Patel AD. 2008. Music, Language, and the Brain New York: Oxford Univ. Press
  72. Patel AD, Daniele JR. 2003. An empirical comparison of rhythm in language and music. Cognition 87:B35–45
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Pearce M, Wiggins G 2004. Improved methods for statistical modelling of monophonic music. J. New Music Res. 33:367–85
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Perruchet P, Poulin-Charronnat B. 2013. Challenging prior evidence for a shared syntactic processor for language and music. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 20:310–17
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Pfordresher PQ, Brown S. 2009. Enhanced production and perception of musical pitch in tone language speakers. Atten. Percept. Psychophys. 71:1385–98
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Pickering MJ, Ferreira VS. 2008. Structural priming: a critical review. Psychol. Bull. 134:427–59
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Povel D, Essens P. 1985. Perception of temporal patterns. Music Percept 2:411–40
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Ramus F 2002. Acoustic correlates of linguistic rhythm: perspectives. Proceedings of Speech Prosody B Bell, I Marlien 115–20 Aix-en-Provence, Fr: Lab. Parole Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Roach P. 1982. On the distinction between ‘stress-timed’ and ‘syllable-timed’ languages. Linguistic Controversies D Crystal 73–79 London: Edward Arnold
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Rohrmeier M. 2011. Towards a generative syntax of tonal harmony. J. Math. Music 5:35–53
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Rolland P. 1999. Discovering patterns in musical sequences. J. New Music Res. 28:334–50
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Russell JA. 1980. A circumplex model of affect. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 39:1161–78
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Saffran JR, Aslin RN, Newport EL. 1996. Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science 274:1926–28
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Saffran JR, Johnson E, Aslin RN, Newport EL 1999. Statistical learning of tone sequences by human infants and adults. Cognition 70:27–52
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Savage PE, Brown S, Sakai E, Currie TE 2015. Statistical universals reveal the structures and functions of human music. PNAS 112:8987–92
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Schellenberg EG, Trehub SE. 2008. Is there an Asian advantage for pitch memory?. Music Percept 25:241–52
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Schenker H. 1979 (1935. Free Composition trans. E Oster New York: Longman
  88. Schubert P, Cumming J 2015. Another lesson from Lassus: using computers to analyse counterpoint. Early Music 43:577–86
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Serafine ML, Glassman N, Overbeeke C 1989. The cognitive reality of hierarchic structure in music. Music Percept 6:397–430
    [Google Scholar]
  90. Shattuck-Hufnagel S, Turk AE 1996. A prosody tutorial for investigators of auditory sentence processing. J. Psycholinguist. Res. 25:193–247
    [Google Scholar]
  91. Slevc LR, Reitman J, Okada B 2013. Syntax in music and language: the role of cognitive control. Proc. Annu. Meet. Cogn. Sci. Soc. 35:3414–19
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Slevc LR, Rosenberg JC, Patel AD. 2009. Making psycholinguistics musical: self-paced reading time evidence for shared processing of linguistic and musical syntax. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 16:374–81
    [Google Scholar]
  93. Sloboda J. 1983. The communication of musical metre in piano performance. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. A 35:377–96
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Sluijter AM, Van Heuven VJ. 1996. Spectral balance as an acoustic correlate of linguistic stress. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100:2471–85
    [Google Scholar]
  95. Spencer H. 1890. The origin of music. Mind 15:449–68
    [Google Scholar]
  96. Swain J. 1997. Musical Languages New York: W.W. Norton
  97. Tan I, Lustig E, Temperley D 2019. Anticipatory syncopation in rock: a corpus study. Music Percept 36:353–70
    [Google Scholar]
  98. Tannen D. 1989. Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  99. Temperley D. 1999a. The question of purpose in music theory: description, suggestion, and explanation. Curr. Musicol. 66:66–85
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Temperley D. 1999b. Syncopation in rock: a perceptual perspective. Pop. Music 18:19–40
    [Google Scholar]
  101. Temperley D. 2001. The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  102. Temperley D. 2004. Communicative pressure and the evolution of musical styles. Music Percept 21:313–37
    [Google Scholar]
  103. Temperley D. 2009. Distributional stress regularity: a corpus study. J. Psycholinguist. Res. 38:75–92
    [Google Scholar]
  104. Temperley D. 2017. Rhythmic variability in European vocal music. Music Percept 35:193–99
    [Google Scholar]
  105. Temperley D. 2019. Uniform information density in music. Music Theory Online 25:25
    [Google Scholar]
  106. Temperley D, Gildea D. 2015. Information density and syntactic repetition. Cogn. Sci. 39:1802–23
    [Google Scholar]
  107. Temperley N, Temperley D 2011. Music-language correlations and the ‘Scotch Snap.. Music Percept 29:51–63
    [Google Scholar]
  108. Temperley N, Temperley D. 2013. Stress-meter alignment in French vocal music. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 134:520–27
    [Google Scholar]
  109. Terhardt E. 1974. Pitch, consonance, and harmony. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 55:1061–69
    [Google Scholar]
  110. Tillmann B, Koelsch S, Escoffier N, Bigand E, Lalitte P et al. 2006. Cognitive priming in sung and instrumental music: activation of inferior frontal cortex. NeuroImage 31:1771–82
    [Google Scholar]
  111. VanHandel L. 2017. The war of the Romantics: an alternate hypothesis using nPVI for the quantitative anthropology of music. Empir. Musicol. Rev. 11:234–42
    [Google Scholar]
  112. VanHandel L, Song T 2010. The role of meter in compositional style in 19th-century French and German art song. J. New Music Res. 39:1–11
    [Google Scholar]
  113. Vickers B. 1994. Repetition and emphasis in rhetoric: theory and practice. See Fischer 1994 85–114
  114. Vukovics K, Shanahan D. 2020. Rhythmic variability, language, and style: a replication and extension of nPVI findings with the RISM dataset. J. New Music Res. 49:285–97
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031220-121126
Loading
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031220-121126
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error