Music and Language

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.

The Nativeness of Breton Speakers and Their Erasure

I discuss the nativeness of heritage speakers of Breton in the twentieth century. I present a syntactic test designed for Breton that sets apart its native speakers from its late learners, for whom Breton is a second language. Nativeness is revealed by a better tolerance to syntactic overload when sufficient linguistic stress is applied. Both heritage speakers of inherited Breton and early bilinguals whose linguistic input comes exclusively from school answer this test alike, which I take as a sign they are cognitively natives. The syntactic nativeness of children deprived of familial Breton input suggests there is many more young Breton natives among contemporary speakers than previously assumed. Taking stock of these results, I discuss the cultural erasure of Breton native speakers. I compare their cultural treatment with the figure of the ghost. I end by a discussion of the term new speaker.

Processing of Linguistic Stress in the Damaged Left and Right Hemisphere

Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1983), pp. 245-256

Prominence matching in english songs : a historical perspective

La poesía métrica es la fuente primaria de evidencia lingüística para la reconstrucción del sistema de acentuación de una lengua muerta, y en particular la métrica que controla la coincidencia o ajuste entre acento lingüístico y posiciones fuertes. para el inglés medio, la distribución del acento léxico a través de los esquemas débil/fuerte del pentámetro yámbico, desde chaucer hasta shakespeare, ha ofrecido información importante para el análisis lingüístico. además de la poesía hablada, las canciones proveen otro tipo de poesía métrica presente en este periodo que, sin embargo, aún no ha sido explotado como fuente de evidencia métrica o lingüística. el presente trabajo intenta contribuir a llenar este vacío a través del estudio diacrónico del desajuste prominente.The primary source of linguistic evidence in reconstructing stress systems is provided by metered poetry, particularly by meters that control the matching of the linguistic stress to metrical strong positions. For middle english, the distribution of lexical stress across the weak/strong patterns of iambic pentameter, from chaucer to shakespeare, has provided important clues for linguistic analysis. in addition to spoken poetry, songs provide another type of metered poetry from that period. however, they have not been exploited as a source of metrical or linguistic evidence. the present paper takes a tentative step towards filling this gap, by focusing on a diachronic study of prominence mismatching.