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Does the Y-Model for Language Work for Music?

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Book cover Language, Music and Computing (LMAC 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 943))

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Abstract

The four main modules of the classic model for the faculty of language postulated in generative linguistics—lexicon, syntax, phonology/prosody and semantics—have been hypothesized to each have a (more or less abstract) equivalent module in the faculty of music. This hypothesis suggests that it should be possible to explain the way these modules interact—represented by the inverted-Y form of the model—in a similar fashion. I propose a refinement of Katz and Pesetsky’s (2011) hypothesis by suggesting that there are a number of common properties shared by the lexical systems of music and language, and it is precisely this that explains some of their fundamental syntactic similarities. What makes the two systems different is not primitively the properties of their lexical modules, but rather the radically different nature of their respective interpretive modules—semantics in the case of language (or, technically, the conceptual-intentional system), and the Tonal-Harmonic Component (THC) in the case of music.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    All three examples are taken from Jackendoff and Lerdahl (2006), p. 41 and 56.

  2. 2.

    See Katz (2017) for a proposal of what kind of conditions may the THC impose to the syntactic structures of music for a proper tonal interpretation.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been financed by a public grant from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes of the Spanish government (FPU14/04707) and forms part of subproject FFI2014-56968-C4-1-P, financed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, and project 2017SGR-634, financed by AGAUR-Generalitat de Catalunya.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Lingüística Teòrica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (CLT-UAB), Barcelona, Spain

    Oriol Quintana

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  1. Oriol Quintana
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Correspondence to Oriol Quintana .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Polina Eismont

  2. Saint Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Olga Mitrenina

  3. Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, USA

    Asya Pereltsvaig

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Quintana, O. (2019). Does the Y-Model for Language Work for Music?. In: Eismont, P., Mitrenina, O., Pereltsvaig, A. (eds) Language, Music and Computing. LMAC 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 943. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05594-3_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05594-3_1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05594-3

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