Musicology and linguistics: integrating the phraseology of text and tune in the creative process.(Critical Essay)

The implications of the analogous features of music and language for theory and method in the 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 "prosodies." This system includes properties of syllabic structure such as initial, final, and medial characteristics, the number and nature of syllables, stress, and tone, all of which are features of the syllable or groups of syllables and their junctures and are, therefore, distinct from the vowels and consonants that delimit the syllable.

In Firth's view, the analytical procedures suggested by the syntagmatic nature of prosodies in language invites "comparison with theories of melody and rhythm in music." He notes:

 
   Writers on the 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 the same pitch, and 
   without accent, musical rhythm could not be found in it. Hence the 
   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 the sense of stress and enter into the 
   grouping of measures. (128) 

He continues:

 
   We can tentatively adapt this part of the theory of music for the 
   purpose of framing a theory of prosodies. Let us regard the syllable 
   as a pulse or beat, and a word or piece 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 the interrelations of 
   the syllables, what I have previously referred to as the syntagmatic 
   relations, as opposed to the 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 the chiming of what are usually called consonants are common prosodic features of speech.... Such features can be so distributed as to form part of artistic prosodies 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 the 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 the analogy between the rhythms of the sounds of language and those of music intriguing, as were the distributional and positional criteria implied in the syntagmatic approach and the search for interrelations. The idea that analytical focus should extend beyond small units (such as the syllable and the word) to groups and larger configurations (such as "the piece" or collocation emphasized in both papers) that tally with the particular aspect of music theory that Firth quoted earlier in support of his analytical position also made sense to me.