Fwd: Does music technically qualify as a language?

[Chad NILEP]

The mention of "musical vocabulary, syntax, and grammar" as well as
appeals (or resistance to appeals) to tense and case reminds me of Pier
Passolini's grammar of film.

Bear in mind that it has been 25 years since my one-time reading of
Passolini, so these comments relate to my hazy memories of my hazier
undergraduate thoughts, and perhaps not so much to Passolini's work as
such.

As I recall, the grammar of film included a vocabulary and a syntax,
including case, tense, mood, and voice. To my mind these concepts worked
as metaphor, but the mapping to actual theories of syntax didn't work as
well. For example, the relationship between filmic "tense" and "mood"
might bear no resemblance to tense, aspect, and mood in human languages.
As a tool for film critics or film makers the grammar could be very
productive, but to expect linguists to be able to contribute to it would
be to confuse the metaphor's target and its ground.

The question, "Does music technically qualify as a language?" might be a
similarly useful tool to think with -- both for musicians to think about
communication and rule-governed behavior in music, and for linguists to
think about definitions, uses, and limits of language. But the ways each
group answers the question won't necessarily help the other, at least not
directly.


-- 
Chad NILEP
Institute of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Nagoya University
Email: nilep at ilas.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Tel/Fax: (+81) 052-747-6705