Linguistics: A New Approach for Musical Analysis?

Author(s): Jean-Jacques Nattiez

Source: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jun.,
1973), pp. 51-68
Published by: Croatian Musicological Society
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LINGUISTICS: A NEW APPROACH

FOR MUSICAL ANALYSIS?*
JEAN-JACQUES NATTIEZ
Faculte de Musique, Universite de Montreal

Linguistics,semiologyand musical analysis

The idea is in the air: linguistics,that is the methodsused to describea
language,might be relevantto musicalanalysis.In 1970, while visiting the
Faculty of Music of the Universityof Montreal,Pierre Boulez announced:
>Itis vital to escape, as one might put it, from this kind of formalist1analysis in orderto reach true formalism,what is known as the formalistschool
of the analysis of language.22And two years later, in the same context,
lannis Xenakis used the same terms: >In music, we do not have a com-

prehensivescience of form, form in the sense of structure... The study

of harmonyand counterpointprovidesat the most a training as a musicologist, and, what is more, a very limited kind of musicologista,and, on two
* This
article, here slightly enlarged, has been published also in French in The
Canada Music Book/Les Cahiers Canadiens de Musique, 1972, Vol. 4.
The term >formal< is one of the most important and most confused of current
scientific terminology. The formalist analysis of which Boulez speaks in the first instance is what musicians usually call the analysis of forms: the sonata, the concerto,
the passacaglia, etc. Formal analysis in linguistics is something quite different: ?formal<<here is a synonym of ?explicit<<.The adjective >formal< here refers to the nature
of the analysis and not to its subject: it is a matter, for instance, of representing the
structure of a language by diagrams or strict rules. From this point of view, Oformx
is a synonym for tstructurec,that is, an abstract model which accounts for the relations between the parts of a given phenomenon. It is in this sense that XENAKIS,
below, speaks of form. The sense changes again when one opposes >form<<to >content<
its purely material side (the sequence of sounds) is
(see below): in the word >horse<<
its form, while the meaning is its content. On the different senses of the word ?formalk see John LYONS' fine analysis. which is doubtless incomplete, in Linguistique
generale, Larouse. Paris 1970, pp. 105-6. (Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics,
Cambridge 1968.)
2 Cahicrs canadiens de musiquc, 1971, No. 2, p. 39.

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52

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC

occasions, he imagines a possible resort to linguistics.3 In fact, the idea is

not new: we can trace it back historicallyto a lecture given by Beckingto

the Prague Linguistic Circle in 1932.4 Yet this appeal to linguisticswill
seem shockingto some ways of thinking,and astonishingor fascinatingto
others. The author of the present article would carry the paradox to the
point of marvellingthat it has been thought of so late: as we have said
elsewhere,music is perhapsthe non-linguisticfield where linguisticmodels
can most successfullybe applied,5which is surprisingwhen one considers
that music is one of the last fields towards which linguisticshas reached
out, after the structuresof kinship, myth, fashion, the unconscious, and
biological,literaryand cinematic structure.6
The idea of using linguisticmodels for the study of non-linguisticfields
doubtlessgoes back to F. de Saussure'sCours de linguistiquegenerale (C.
L. G.) which appeared in 1916, and where the author, while setting out
the principlesof modern structurallinguistics, postulates,under the title
semiology, the existence of a general science of signs which would cover
all sign systems,including language,7and which might perhaps take linguisticsas a general model of analysis,>even though language is only one
For reasonswe will go into later, linguisticshas seemed to
single system<<.8
scholarsof various human sciences a pilot discipline, able to bring rigour
where there had been mere laxity, and it is because it took three decades
after the publicationof the C. L. G. to achieve by degreesthe level of scientific rigour that Saussure'ssemiologicalproject only began to be considered seriouslyafter the last war. But, on the other hand, one might wonder
whether transferringlinguistic models to the study of non-linguisticfields
for which they were not originallydesigned can be justified. After the caveats of the French linguist Andre Martinet, GeorgesMounin9defined semiology as a discipline which undertakesas its first task to examine the
3 Interview with XENAKIS at the
Faculty of Music of the University of Montreal, 7-8 March 1972.
4 See the review by Roman JAKOBSON under the title >Musicologieet linguistique%,Musique en jeu, Nov. 1971, No. 5, pp. 57-59. We wish to speak of the use
of modern (post-Saussurean) linguistic models, for the idea of comparing music to
language is not new (see for example Descartes and Mersenne); in 1853 Jean d'ORTIGUE, in his Introduction a l'etude compare'edes tonalites anciennes et orientales,
was already suggesting that Charles NODIER's Notions elementaires de linguistique
(1834) should be used, at a time when linguistics was essentially historical and comparative.
s Is a descriptive semiotics of music possible? Language Sciences, Bloomington
No. 23, decembre 1972, pp. 1-7.
(Ind.),
6 C. LEVI-STRAUSS, Les structures
e'lementaires de la parente, P. U. F., Paris
1949; Mythologiques (4 vol.), Plon, Paris 1964-72; R. BARTHES, Systeme de la
mode, Seuil, Paris 1967; J. LACAN, ?crits, Seuil, Paris 1966; F. JACOB, La logique
du vivant, Gallimard, Paris 1970; C. METZ, Essais sur la signification au cinema,
Klincksieck, Paris 1968. This list does not imply that we agree with the use made of
linguistics in these works: we merely wish to show that this is a strong tendency in
current research.
7 C. L. G.,
p. 33.
8

Ibid., p. 101.

' See his Introduction a la semiologie, Minuit, Paris 1970.

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LINGUISTICS:A NEW APPROACHFOR MUSICALANALYSIS?

validity of such a use: in order to do this he suggests that the structures of

human language should be compared with those of the field in question.
So musical semiology, for us, will begin with a term by term comparison
between music and language.
Here we can only summarize, very roughly,'1 the results of this undertaking. If, like language, music is a linear system (i. e. progresses chronologically) it has two dimensions (and even three when a spatial dimension
becomes, as in Terretektorh, one of the constituent elements of the work).
Does music >>tell<<
us anything? It arouses certain affective and psychological associations in us, as does a linguistic utterance, but, on the other
hand, the semantics of music is not wholly comparable to the semantics of
a language: while the description of a language is incomplete if one leaves
out of account that it is a system of signs with referents, the analysis of a
musical system is completed in the description of the relations between
sounds considered purely as audible forms.'l It is precisely in semantics that
linguistics is meeting its greatest difficulties today, and it is even becoming
increasingly difficult to define the border between syntax and semantics.
Of all non-artificial12 semiological systems, music alone seems to present itself as a succession of separate or >>discretizable<<
elements (notes),
that is, elements separated from each other by a discontinuous variation.13 It is in this characteristic that it comes closest to the aspect
of language known as second articulation, that is the succession of separate, meaningless items, phonemes (p. b. t. s, etc.). It is not by chance that
the study of these items, phonology, was the first branch of linguistics to
make rapid headway. For the same reason the semiology of music should,
in contrast with the semiologies of visual arts, establish itself successfully,
that is, put forward procedures of analysis that can be repeated, so that a
musical text, to paraphrase Jean-Claude Gardin,14 in the hands of different
analysts, would yield similar explanatory schemas. But it would be no
service to the semiology of music to succumb on these grounds to over-hasty
enthusiasm. We would like to utter two cautions.
First, one must grasp fully what is involved. If musical analysis is to take
inspiration from linguistics, the musicologist must borrow its methods, its
techniques and its procedures of analysis and apply them to music. This has
nothing in common with the use that ethnomusicologists usually make of
linguistics in order to study the occurence of linguistic phenomena within
music: the influence of speech on song, for example, or vice versa.15 But

10 In the book we are

writing on musical semiology, this point alone occupies about
a hundred and fifty pages.
u Form in the last sense defined in note 1.
12 By artificial systems we mean the languages of computer programming, mathematical logic and information storage retrival.
'3 In contrast to a glissando, for example. What we are saying here is only true
in general. For the finer points see our article cited in note 5.
14 J. C. GARDIN, Analyse semiologique et litterature, Nuovo 75, autumn 1967,
No. 1, pp. 6-7.
15 G. Cf. LIST, The Boundaries of Speech and Song, Ethnomusicology, 1963, Vol.
7, pp. 1-16; B. NETTL, Theory and Method in Ethnomusicology, The Free Press,
Glencoe (Ill.) 1964.

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54

INTERNATIONALREVIEWOF THE AESTHETICSAND SOCIOLOGYOF MUSIC

the linguistictraining of ethnomusicologistexplains that they are, none

more so perhaps,alive to the idea of using linguisticsin the service of the
study of music.16
Next, we must not believe that linguistics will offer recipes ready for
use: there is no single science of linguistics,but a multiplicityof schoolsand
trends. The musician who is interestedin the semiology of music will be
doubtless surprised by the diverse, even contradictorynature of the argumentsand doctrines:this is the price paid for the dynamismof a rapidly
developingscience. Moreover,one must be wary of fashions:the latest linguistic theory may not be the one best suited to musicology.Also, musical
semiology,duringits theoreticalelaborationof conceptsuseful in the analysis of music, may sometimesbe led to criticise from a linguistic point of
view certain linguisticmethods. It is even possiblethat the problemsraised
by the application of linguisticsto the analysisof music may lead to the
revisionof certain of the notions of linguisticsin their primaryapplication
to language,17which would only be a fair return, a recognitionof services
rendered.
Now that we are duly cautioned we will try to demonstratewhy linguistics has been seen as a forward sector of the human sciences, the position of musical analysisin relation to it, and, at the same time, what linguisticshas to offer musicalanalysis.
The aim of linguistics:the aim of musicalanalysis
The first merit of linguisticsis that it has defined and continues to define the area of its competence. Not all the facts of language fall within
the province of linguistics.In the C. L. G. Saussuremakes three essential
distinctionsfor which one can find correspondingdistinctionsin the field
of music.
Saussuredistinguishesfirst between internaland externallinguistics:it is
no longer a questionof studyinglinguisticdata from a point of view external to language (psychological, sociological, etc.) but from within language, that is of showing the relationsbetween linguistic items. For such
an approachto be rigorousno particularphenomenonmust be given pride
of place a priori, as it would be if one only took into account those elements significant from a sociological or psychologicalpoint of view.
It might be considered that traditional musical analysis does not
generally work purely within music because the aims of its description are not clearly defined: is it question of bringing out the beauty
of the work, or its expressive or its musical quality? - all of these
1e We are here thinking of the work of Norma McLeod, Charles Boiles, Vida Chenoweth, etc.
17 It is in
considering the notion of acceptability in music, inspired by generative
grammar, that we have come to criticise its use in linguistics. In the same way, a
consideration of the process of ,semantisation< in music throws light on linguistic

>semantisationc.

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LINGUISTICS:A NEW APPROACHFOR MUSICALANALYSIS?

55

being concepts, and very vague ones at that, which make one likely to select a priori from the data those facts which seem most
suited to illustrate a particular thesis or point of view. And here,
from a different order of thinking, is the definition of ethnomusicology which was drawn up in 1956 by the InternationalCongressof
Musicology: ?In the matter of national folklore, musicologyaims first to
understandthe different styles and forms and to link them with the difBut, paradoxically,it is perhaps when it sets
ferent races and cultures.<<18
out on the path of semiologythat musicalanalysisruns the greatestrisksof
not remaining immanent: thus we find the Czech musicologist A.
Sychra suggesting in 1949 that the empirical analysis of the songs
of his countryshould be replacedby a semiologicalapproachwhich would
only be concernedwith the elementsrelevantto the social function of these
songs.19This view is not in itself erroneous:it springsfrom the procedure
of phonologywhich, based on the physicaldescriptionof the soundsof the
language which phonetics provides,retains only those aspects of it which
are relevant to meaning. The whole question is to know whether musical
analysisis as certain as phonetic analysisto become sufficientlydeveloped
and exhaustiveto serve as the basis for a searchfor such relevance.
In second place, Saussureseparatesthe synchronicfrom the diachronic
approachto the facts of language. By diachronicis meant the study of the
evolution of the language: how the Latin pater gives the French pare (father) for instance. A synchronicstudy, on the other hand, considersthe
same word, pere, in relation to other words of the same language at the
same period. And Saussurehas above all shown that the same linguistic
object is described differently from a synchronic and from a diachronic
viewpoint. It is one thing to show that the Latin testa meaning >potterye
has come to referto the head (tete): it is anotherto study the semanticrelation between tete and chef (chief) in the French of 1972. This Saussurian dichotomymeant a real revolutionin linguistics,which in the nineteenth
century was limited to the study of the historyof languages: the introduction of the clearlydistinguishedsynchronicapproachbringsinto view at the
same time the systematicand structuralapproachto the facts of language.20
Musicology seems, decisively this time, to have failed to acknowledge

explicitly that the division Saussuresuggestedfor linguisticsin 1916 is ad-

vantageous,21 to judge by A. Machabey's statement that >>Musicologyis a

18

Quoted by E. HARASZTI, La musicologie, in Histoire de la musique II, Encyclopedie de la Pleiade, Gallimard, Paris 1963, p. 1553. The underlining is ours.
19 A. SYCHRA, La chanson
folklorique du point de vue semiologique, Slovo a
slovesnost, Prague 1949, pp. 7-23.
2 One should not however fall into the common error of understanding ,synchronic? and vstructuralc as synonymous: it is possible to make a diachronic structural
study.
21 Which does not, moreover, belong to linguistics alone, but to other modern
sciences like political economy. See, on this, J. MOLINO, Linguistique et economie
politique: sur un modele 6pistemologique du Cours de Saussure, L'atge de la science,
1970, pp. 335-349.

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56

INTERNATIONALREVIEWOF THE AESTHETICSAND SOCIOLOGYOF MUSIC

paramusical discipline that enquires into, formulates and resolves problems

relating to the history of music22 and its aesthetics and to the most widely
diverse manifestations of music itself.<<23And he says moreover that hthe
musicological study of scores aims above all22 to determine what connects
them with earlier or contemporary musical aesthetics, and also where they
part company with it, and to know besides whether they have left some
trace or exerted an influence on following generations.<<24In the Encyclopedie Larousse (I, 1957) we find: >>Musicalanalysis: an objective account
of the technical procedures used in the composition of a particular work.
The analysis may remain at the level of a simple morphological description,
but may also reach comprehension of the essential logic of a technique
( ... ) To retrace the genesis of a work or a historical advance raises analysis to the level of creation.<<*Is it not characteristic that Charles Seeger
should, in 1939, have regretted the existence of a breach between system(tic and historic musicologists?25 Before a structural history was contemplated, was a synchronic description of the structures made?
Saussure works with a further and final disctinction, a fundamental one,
without which linguistics would be purposeless. Among the heterogeneous
facts of language he separates what he calls langue (which must not be confused with particular languages) and parole. By langue he means the abstract system which is common to all the speakers of a given language; parole, on the other hand, is the totality of all the individual acts of language:
no two people pronouce a in the same way, and, in the same individual, a
is uttered in a different way according to the places it occupies in a linguistic context. To show what distinguishes a for every speaker of French
from the other vowels of French is to place it on the level of langue, and is
a part of phonology. To study the actual utterances of a is to place it at the
level of parole and is a part of phonetics.
The distinction between langue and parole must be applied cautiously
in music, but it enables us to reveal different leves among musical facts:
to the parole of linguistics may correspond the performance of a work and,
at the same time, the work (the parole of a composer) as it relates to a
musical system (tonal, serial, etc.). This is because music, unlike everyday language, is an art, and is realised in works which can later be performed. This means that musical semiology has not two levels to choose
from but three: the level of performance, that of the organization of the
work itself, and its system of reference. Can musical semiology deal with
variations in execution from one performance to the next and judge what,
*
?Analyse musicale: compte-rendu objectif des procedes techniques qui ont servi
a l'elaboration de cette oeuvre. L'analyse peut se situer au niveau de la simple description morphologique, mais aussi bien parvenir a l'intelligence de ce qui constitue
la dialectique d'une demarche (...) Retrouver la genese d'une oeuvre ou d'une demarche historique elive l'analyse au niveau de la creation.,
22 Our underlining.
2a La musicologie, P. U. F., Q. S. J.?, Paris, p. 119.
14 Ibid., pp. 117-8.
'5 Quoted by E. HARASZTI, op. cit., pp. 1675-6.

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LINGUISTICS:A NEW APPROACHFOR MUSICALANALYSIS?

57

on the level of a particular interpretation, belongs strictly to music? Just as,

for Saussure, scientific linguistics is the study of langue and not of parole, so
it might be considered that it would be speediest and easiest for it to take
as the subject of analysis a series of works sufficiently numerous to reveal
constants. This is the way linguistics proceeds in seeking a systematic structure beyond the individual character of the sentences. When one looks at it
this way, is it even possible to discuss the semiology of a single work of music? We do not believe so,26 for all the attempts at literary semiology27 and
such semiological approaches to works of music as have been made28 tend
to show that recurrent features are only apparent against a background of
works sufficiently numerous to give some guide-line as to what is relevant.29
So, between works considered intuitively as stylistically homogeneous and
their system of reference a whole series of intermediate steps is established,
rather like an inverted cone, which leads us from the style of a particular
period of the work of one composer (Mozart's mature style) to the wider
system through the style of the whole of the composer's work, the style of
a genre (for example, concertant music), of an epoch (romantic), etc. This
ordering in a series of the objects to be analysed30 would make musical semiology possible, and it would then seem to us sufficiently clearly defined:
it tends at present to become confused with stylistics because the structural
systems of music, as of literature, are realised in individual works. But its
special feature, in contrast to the traditional analysis of music, will be the
rigour of its methods, and it is this that we will discuss now.
sExtractive<<procedures, linguistics and musical analysis
What has enabled linguistics since the Prague Linguistic Circle was founded in 1926 to win the reputation it enjoys today is that it has focussed its
main attention on its discovery procedures which we might go as far as to
call heuristic, or procedures of elicitation. This is what places linguistics
truly in the realm of science, in contrast to many contemporary >semiologies<: >No physicist or biologist<<,writes Gardin, >>wouldbe surprised to be
asked to present, along with a new theory, the natural data and the mental
processes which led him to formulate it.<<31The procedures of elicitation
26
Unless the work itself is of considerable length: Tristan or La T7tralogie, for
example.
27
We have in mind the work on the structural analysis of poetry by JAKOBSON,
LEVI-STRAUSS and RUWET.
28 For
example, F. B. MACHE, MIthodes linguistiques et musicologie, Musique
en jeu, Nov. 1971, No. 5, pp. 75-92: for our criticism, see the article cited in note 5.
29 We owe this view of semio-stylistic relevance to Jean Molino (Sur les titres
de Bruce, unpublished).
30 J. C. GARDIN has
put forward the criterion of serial ordering in his work on
the analysis of documents which inspired the semiological theory of J. Molino. But
one might say more generally that all scientific analysis, even when it does not state
this, is based on a serial arrangement of the subjects approached.
31 J. C. GARDIN, op. cit., p. 6.

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INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE AESTHETICS AND SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC

58

are all those techniqueswhich make it possible to mark off in the amorphous area offered to the analyst those objects which will be included in
the scientific description.One may question the worth of this or that
method: one can only begin to speak of science if the analytic procedures
are explicit enough to be copied by anotherinvestigatoror, to put it another
way, explicit enough to show what steps will lead one to a given theory.
Linguistics,from this point of view, is divided into two large families.
First,there are the functionalistand glossematicschools,which define items
by the role they play in human communication,that is, by the meanings
carriedby language. Phonologythus considersthat in French p and b are
two distinct phonemes because they keep the listener from confusing >>pierre<<(stone) with >biere<<(beer): it is when p and b commute that one
observes a change of meaning, and so observes that p and b may be
consideredas two distinctiveunits. It is immediatelyapparentthat musical
analysiscannot use procedureslike this since it is impossibleproperlyspeaking to make units change place in relation to their meaning.
On the other hand, anotherschool, distributionalism(or Americanstructuralism) attempts to describelanguages without relation to meaning but
solely by the examinationof the contextsin which a particularitem appears.
It was the works of Harris that inspired Nicolas Ruwet, who is both linguist and musicologist,to proposea method of distinguishingunits in music based on the idea of repetition:the articlesthat this author has written
seem to us to point the most substantialdirectionfor musical semiologyto
take in the future.32
In fact, if we turn to musical analysis in its present state, we see that
there has been no attempt to define rigorouslythe items with which we
work. Let us examine, as Ruwet suggests,the definitionsof apparentlysimple terms like phrase, cellule, figure, motif, periode, and theme in the various encyclopediasor analytical treatises.33
First,is an individualauthorconsistent?
Encyclopedie Larousse, 1957:
cellule:
petit dessin melodique et rythmique qui peut etre isole ou faire partie d'un
contexte thematique. Une cellule peut etre appelee a etre developpe'e independamment de son contexte, tel un fragment melodique. Elle peut etre a la source de toute la structure d'une oeuvre; on 'appelle alors cellule generatrice.
*2 N. RUWET, Note sur les duplications dans l'oeuvre de C. Debussy, Revue belge
de musicologie, 1962, XVI, pp. 57-70; Methodes d'analyse en musicologie, R. B. Al.,
1966, XX, pp. 65-90; Quelques remarques sur le role de la repetition dans la syntaxe
musicale, in To honour Roman Jakobson, Mouton, The Hague 1967, pp. 1693-1703.
Reprinted in Langage, musique, polsie, Le Seuil, collection Poetique, Paris 1972.
33 We are extremely grateful to Louise Hirbour-Paquette for undertaking this
survey.

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59

motif:
petit element caractiristique d'une composition musicale, qui assure d differents
titres l'unite d'une oeuvre ou d'une partie d'oeuvre (un motif qui peut etre
assimile a une cellule, est capable de prendre trois aspects qui peuvent etre
dissocies, rythmique, melodique, harmonique).
figure:
motif rythmique et melodique analogue d la cellule.

We see that, by virtue of the definition of figure, cellule, motif and figure
are one and the same thing, with one exception: harmony is not involved
in cellule and figure. Looking at it more closely, can one speak of differences between cellule and motif? From a cellule the whole structure of a work
may spring, while a motif gives unity to a work or part of a work. Are we
not speaking of the same phenomenon?

theme:
idee musicale constituee par une melodie (ou un fragment melodique) sur
laquelle s'appuie la structure d'une composition musicale.

The only difference from the cellule here is that a theme cannot be
rhythmic only, but the author does not state whether it can be melodic
only. Apart from this, the difference seems to be one of size: the cellule,
like the motif, is a small item. But at what point do they become th?mes?
If we now turn to the Encyclopedie de la Pleiade, we see how inconsistent
this vocabulary is: a motif here is defined as a >>cellulemilodique, rythmi-

que ou harmonique,caracteristiquedans une oeuvre musicale.<<34

The confusion is worse confouded if we turn from French to English.

One need only look at this:

figure:
any short succession of notes, either as melody or a group of chords, which
produces a single, complete and distinct impression. The term is the exact
counterpart of the German >Motiv<<and the French >motif<<.It is the shortest
complete idea in music.<35

But is motif, in French, well enough defined for one to speak of an exact
counterpart? We could multiply examples ad infinitum.
The second problem set by these definitions, and by far the most important, because it calls in question the very foundations of traditional mu34 Histoire de la
musique, Encyclopedie de la Pleiade, Gallimard, Paris 1960,
p. 2052.
85 Grove Dictionary, St. Martin's Press, 1964.

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60

sical analysis,is that of finding the criteriawhich would enable one to separate out musical units, for it is clearly units with a beginning and an end
which are under discussion.Let us turn to the Encyclopedie Fasquelle
(1958):
cellule:
terme de composition musicale qui appartient surtout au vocabulaire cyclique:
c'est la plus petite unite indivisible; la cellule est distincte du motif, lequel est
divisible; la cellule peut, elle aussi, etre employee comme motif de dJveloppement.

motif:
en syntaxe musicale classique, c'est 1e plus petit Iliment unitaire (phrase)
analysable d'un sujet qui peut comporter une ou plusieurs cellules.
Motif harmonique: c'est un enchainement d'accords defini dans l'abstrait,
c'est-a-dire sans tenir compte de la melodie et du rythme. Motif melodique,
c'est une formule melodique etablie en ne tenant compte que des intervalles.
Motif rythmique: on appelle ainsi une formule rythmique caracteristique, abstraction faite des valeurs melodiques.

th?me:
tout element, motif ou petite piece ayant donne lieu d quelques variations, devient par Id un theme.

phrase:
ce terme, emprunte' la grammaire,36designe un ensemble de sons limite par
deux pauses et possedant un sens complet (...)
De tous les systemes musicaux, c'est sans doute la rhetorique tonale qui a assure avec le plus de precision
la delimitation des phrases grace a la fixation hierarchisee des cadences harmoniques, calquees sur les articulations du discours parle. Dans la monodie
modale, c'est la pause coincidant avec celle tu texte qui, le plus souvent, tient
lieu de fin de phrase (...) Sa longueur est des plus variables (...)

pe'riode:
une phrase complexe dont les diverses propositions sont enchainees.

Let us set immediatelybeside this list several examples from other works:
phrase (Larousse):
suite de notes qui offrent un sens musical acheve et qui forment une division
naturelle de la ligne melodique, comparable d une phrase du discours consti'* Our underlining.

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tuant un tout complet (une phrasemelodiquese subdiviseen diversmembres

qui correspondent aux indices du discours):

phrase37:
une phrase musicale est une idle developpee ayant un sens complet.
sentence38:
the smallest period in a musical composition that can give in any sense36 the
impression of a complete statement is that called the Sentence, which may be
defined as a period containing tiwo or more phrases, and most frequently ending with some form of perfect cadence.

phrase38:
... in its most frequent manifestation, it is a passage of 4 bars culminating
in a more or less definite cadence, and possessing as consequence some degree
of completeness within itself.

phrase39:
... phrases vary in length from 3 to 6 bars (...)

The 4-bar phrase is by far

the commonest (...).

phrase40:
the term phrase is one of the most ambiguous in music. Besides the fact that it
may validly be used for units of from 2 to 8 measures (sometimes even more)
in length, it is often incorrectly used for subdivisions of multiples of single
phrases (...)

We need quote no further. What do we remark?A multiplicityof cri-

teria each as vague as the next. First, on the pretext that the words >?phrase<
(sentence), >periode<< (period), etc. are linguistic terms, and because music is apprehended linearly, it is believed that these terms may be transferred
to musicology. But what does >a musical unit that makes complete sense<<
mean? It replaces small x by capital X and we are back at a totally subjective definition of the significance of a musical fragment. The authors are
well aware of the inconsistency of such definitions since they add other
criteria: Fasquelle adds cadences and pauses, while the English authors add
"3 J. FALK, Precis technique de composition musicale theorique et pratique, Leduc, Paris 1958, p. 11.
38
S. MACPHERSON, Form in Music, J. Williams (n. d.), London, p. 25. In
linguistics, the English >sentence? corresponds to the French >phrase?, and the English
.phrase<?to the French ?proposition< (relative, adverbial, etc.) or >syntagme? (nominal, verbal).
39 Cedric
Thorpe DAVIE, Musical Structure and Design, Dover, 1966, p. 19.
40 L. STEIN, Structure and Style, Summy-Birchard Co., Evanston 1926, p. 37.

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INTERNATIONALREVIEWOF THE AESTHETICSAND SOCIOLOGYOF MUSIC

the number of bars without agreeing as to what this number is (cf. Stein's
reservations).Ruwet asked for instance on the subject of segmentatiol:
>>DoI get the same resultsif I base the divisionon the pauses,and then on
the cadences- which coincide above all in choral music - or on the other
hand does an appeal to differentcriteriaestablishdifferentdivisionswhich
introduceambiguitiesinto the structure??41
As we have said above, the only possiblesolutionis to establishconsistent
criteriafor segmentation:Ruwet had the idea of basing them on the repetition of musical forms, as considered from the various viewpoints of
rhythm,melody and harmonyseparately.The germ fo this techniqueis apparent in Fasquelle'sdefinition of motifs. Moreover,when this work says
that the cellule can be developedit is inviting us to considerwhat is invol
ved in the transformationof any musical segment. We would say that for
two musicalelementsto be related by transformationthe second must keep
somethingof the first. Withoutgoing in detail into the techniquesby which
one would find these transformationswe would say that if the melody remains constant (we have here disregardedharmony) the transformation
is rhythmic, and vice versa. So, between

transformation
is rhythmic.Between

-j

--1--

and

and

"'24Zthe

it is

melodic. It will be necessaryto go on to list all the types of musical transformation, but we can say here and now, as does linguistics,43that there
are three types of elementaryand universal transformationsin all linear
systems:
adjunction: abc -- abcd
abc -+ ab
deletion:
substitution: abc - acb

These transformationwill be applied, of course,to the differentlevels of

the segmentation,accordingto techniqueswhich we will not analyse here.
The problem of a descriptivemetalanguage
It has just been demonstratedthat what linguistics can offer musical
analysis is a process of dividing up and delimiting the units with which
traditionalanalysisdoes in fact work, but worksinexactly. Why inexactly?
Becauseit takes as its starting point an ill-defined terminology:one looks
for a motif or a theme with an intuitive idea of what they are, and it is
this preconceivedidea which takes the place of a criterionfor selection. Is
the problemthen one of seekingstricterdefinitionsin order to lessen these
difficulties?We reject this idea categorically.We must in fact ask ourselves
41 N. RUWET, Methodes d'analyse..., p. 69.
4t J. BRAHMS, Intermezzo en do majeur, op. 119, No. 3.
48 R. A. JACOBS, P. S. ROSENBAUM, English Transformational Grammar,
Waltham (Mass.), Toronto, Xerok College Publishing, 1968, p. 26 (adjunction, substitution, deletion).

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63

why this terminologyis ambiguous.It is simply becausethe few wordseach

language possessesto designate the different types of musical segment are
ridiculouslysmall in numberbesidethe varietyof the segments,which combine aspects of differentorders (rhythm, melody, harmony,timbre, intensity, register), and of the varietyof the variouscriteriafor division (cadences, pauses, repetition,transformation),so that each term plays host to a
motley of any meaningsone wishes to bring: a single concept may refer to
an infinite numberof phenomenavhich vary for each individualaccording
to his educationand his idiosyncracies.
Here we meet a more general and fundamental problem: natural language is not fitted to serve as the language of science44- this is the essential
reason for our difficulties- because it is too vague. It must be clearly realized that the validity of a scientific analysisdoes not depend only on the
validity of the methods by which it is elicited from its material,but also on
the metalanguagein which it expressesits theory of the data analysed. So
the researchprocedures,in functional or distributionallinguistics,lead us
from the unanalysedutterance,here the musical text, to the code, that is
the structuralcharacterisationof the units which the heuristicprocedures
have enabled us to distinguish.The question thereforeis one of knowing
how to make this code explicit.
The problem raised here by musical analysishas been solved in a field
apparently quite different, that of archaeology.Jean-Claude Gardin has
observed, as we have here, that the traditional terms were too vague to
define the objects. >The designationswhich were apparentlythe most ele-

>>manor etc. - turned

mentary and widely used - >amphora, >>Apollo<<,

out to be in fact unreliable,and it was rarelypossibleto define the distinctive featuresof each in a way that was generallyaccepted.Was the true amphora the kind which was flattened at the two handles, etc. or, and more
likely, was it defined by a combination45of such criteria?If by the combination, in what order and arrangedby what rules?<The solutionproposed
by Gardin is that the use of natural language should be completely abolished and it should be replaced by a collection of abstractsymbolsfrom a
preciselydefined repertoire.?An amphora would then be a type of receptacle, anonymous in a way, but very precisely characterisedby a list of
attributesas numerousand as minute as would seem useful for the needs
of further comparativeresearch.?<46
It is apparenthow these principlesmight be used in musical semiology:
it is no longer a question of knowing whether one of the fragments of
Brahmsquoted above is a motif or a cellule: it becomesunit a, or A, or x,
no matter which, possessingcertain characteristicswhich are defined by a
group of features (melodic, rhythmic) which make it possible to compare
it and classifyit, that is to place it in a hierarchy,in relationto all the other
" Cf. G, G. GRANGER, Pensee formelle et sciences de l'homme, Aubier, Paris
1968.
4"

"

Our underlining.

J. C. GARDIN, Analyse documentaire et analyse structurale en archeologie,

L'Arc,No. 26, p. 65.

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INTERNATIONALREVIEWOF THE AESTIHETICS

AND SOCIOLOGYOF MUSIC

segmentsof the piece. On the level of the metalanguageof the analysisone

can guess then what the immediate tasks of musical semiology will be: to
develop fully a formal, artificial, explicit language which can take into
account all the units one can find in music and their combinations.In other
words, musical semiology should invent a vocabulary and a syntax that
would enable it to show how a work or a set of worksresultsfrom the combination of units varyingin nature and size.
Musical analyses then acquires scientific standards: founded on a
explicit and repeatabledivision into units it becomes first of all exhaustive
in a way that sets it apart irrevocablyfrom the stylistic dissertationsof
traditional analysis and thus respectsthe good old Cartesianprinciple of
comprehensiveenumeration.It then reveals an order, that is, a hierarchy
amoung the elements listed which it proceedsto classify: this taxonomic
quality classesit with linguistics,of course, but also with zoology, botany
or chemistrywhose beginningswere no different.47What is more, this classificationis combinative,that is, it will show, in tables or rule-systems,the
relationsbetween each feature or unit and its neighbours.It is by virtue of
this that we can speak in music of structuralismin Saussure'ssense, and
also of set theory: each unit of the work is defined by the intersectionof
n characteristics.Henceforth it is no longer describedfrom the point of
view of its substanceor content (which is always judged subjectively) but
as the node of a network:structureis there from the moment the elements
of a set are defined extrinsicallyin contrastwith other elements.
Here it is advisable to avoid an error which even the greatest
linguistshave fallen into, and which we will call the realistillusion.48The
structuraldescriptionof a musical text does not reveal a structurewhich
was hidden in the text: it resultsfrom an abstractconstructionwhich is set
up by the scholar but which, by virtue of its explicit and formalizedcharacter, other scholarscan criticiseand supersede.It is not thereforea matter
of knowingwhetherthe >>revealed<<
structurecorrespondsto some conscious
intention of the author: it is a model of the object which may be proved
to be a misrepresentation.
The validationof models
With the notion of invalidation we reach a final aspect of musical
semiology on which the most recent linguistics has laid particularstress.
It is not enough in fact to divide the utteranceup correctlyand to discover
its code: one must go on to check the validity of the description.
47 A
zoological classification is simply the listing of abstract features which enable
one to assign a species a place in a table. The same procedure is found in chemistry
(Mendeleiev's periodic classification of the elements) or in the systematic phonological
tables of linguistics: in French, p, t, and k are unvoiced plosives, and b, d and g are
voiced plosives, but p and b are bi-labial, t and d are alveolar, and k and g are dorso-velar.
48 On this subject, cf. R. BOUDON, A
quoi sert la notion de structure, Paris
1968; G. G, GRANGER, Objet, structure et signification, Revue internationale de
philosophie, 1965, No. 73-4, fasc. 3, p. 254.

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65

There is a very importantcurrentin linguisticscalled generativegrammar which, in contrast to distributionalism,moves from the code to the
utterance: this kind of grammarset up as a hypothesisa certain number
of rulesdescribingthe facts, formulatedin such a way that it is possiblefrom
them to deduce, to bring into being (to generate) actual sentencesof the
language. If the personperformingthe operationproducessentenceswhich
are not recognisedas French, for example, by a speakerof the language,
the rules are wrong and must be altered. In this lies the hypotheticaland
deductive nature of the theory of a language put forward by generative
grammar.One simple example: Grevisse'sgrammarsays that to form the
superlative1) the comparativemust be formed, and 2) the article must be
added. The illustrativeapplication of the rule begins with >legar;on aimable<. 1: comparative: >>legarcon plus aimable<<;2: add the article:
?le gar;on le plus aimable<<.
The rule thus seems correct,but it is nothing
of the kind: if I begin with >la jolie fille< and carry out the two stages literally I obtain: 1: >laplus jolie fille<; 2: >la la plus jolie fille<<:Generative
grammar might thus be consideredas a technique for validating the distributional analysis from which it originated historicallyif, in the course
of the last fifteen years, it had not become an autonomouslinguisticshool,
workingforward de facto from an intuitive distributionalanalysis.
The question of validating a descriptivemusicologicalmodel has never
been raised: it is however the solution of this questionwhich would finally
enable musicalanalysisto become an experimentalscience. What traditional analyseslack (not to mention musical criticisim) is sufficient precision
for one to be able to recognise,from the descriptiongiven of the initial material, the work or works being discussedor, beyond this, to recreate the
initial material from the structuraldescriptionand, in the case of works
(plural), to create a work that is new but has the same stylisticcharacteristics as the initial material.In effect, and it is to Jean Molino that we owe
this semio-stylistictheory, just as generativegrammarsimulatesour ability
to invent an infinite numberof sentencesthat we recogniseas French or to
understandFrenchsentencesat first hearing (what Chomskycalls linguistic
competence),so it should be possibleto state the ruleswhich would account
for our ability to recognise at first hearing that a work of Beethoven'sis
indeed by Beethoven,or to invent a new work which would be recognised
by an >expert<in (i. e. someone familiar with) Beethoven'sstyle as resemblingit. It is on this competence,stylisticthis time, that the Faculty of
Music of the Universityof Montrealbases its teaching method of pastiche,
and by it the teacher establisheswhether the student has absorbedthe major stylisticcharacteristicsof a given composer.
But this knowledgeis merely intuitive and lacks organization:it cannot
be consideredas a form of scientific knowledge. It is in fact impossibleto
discern,by ear or throughthe type of analysispractisedup to now, what the
combinationof units and basic featuresis that characterisesa given workor
style. Furthermore,in contrast with linguistic practice, we do not believe
thatit would be possibleto attemptthis descriptionif one began by establishing hypotheseswhich would be tested on the materialby the generationof

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INTERNATIONAL
REVIEWOF THE AESTHETICSAND SOCIOLOGYOF MUSIC

an existing or potential work (pastiche). For each moment of the work can
only be described as the outcome of characteristics of varying natures and
levels, and it does not seem possible to discover straightway the synthesis
(combination) of these characteristics without first going through the taxinomic analysis discussed above. This fact is due to what we, like Ingarden,49
would call the >polyphonic< structure of a work of music. The metaphor
that the author here borrows from music and applies to the novel must not
be taken literally: in our field, it means that the work results from a type
of structure made up of varied and non-hierarchic levels (rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, and many others doubtless within each) whose combination can only be described after each has been tackled independently of
the others.
Musical analysis as a science
Let us look back to assess the ground covered:
1) in the first instance, linguistics invites us to define precisely the aim of
musical analysis in general, and of a particular musical analysis;
2) it goes on to demonstrate that repeatable analytic procedures must be invented which lead us from the utterance to the code;
3) further, it raises the question of the nature of the scientific metalanguage
to be used to express the structural description;
4) Finally, it demonstrates that the results of the analysis may be validated
by going back to the utterance.
We can symbolize the course of this discussion by the following diagram:
code
metalanguage

22
subject of analysis

1
utterance

4
utterance

This plan of work, (for this is what it is) is not, let us frankly admit, peculiar to linguistics: it is the plan followed by all investigators who want
their work to have a scientic character. It is matter of being able to explain
how one reaches the results (3) of the analysis by stages (1) and (2) and
49
R. INGARDEN, Das literarische Kunstwerk, Max Niemeyer, Tiibingen 1965,
p. 395: >>Wirhaben im Laufe unserer Untersuchungen 6fters auf die Wertqualitaten
hingewiesen, die sich in den einzelnen Schichten des literarischen Werkes konstituiren
und in ihrer Gesamtheit zu einer polyphonen Harmonie fuhren.<<Quoted by J. MOLINO, in >Analyse structurale et litterature<<(unpublished), note 51. (We have
several times in the course of our research emphasised the qualities which are found
in particular levels of a work of literature and which form, together, a polyphonic
harmony.)

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67

how one checks them (4). But if linguistics, which at present takes its models from more formalized fields such as logic, mathematics, and the theory
of formal languages, affords an example to musical analysis, it is because
it has developed its procedures of analysis and validation on material which
is analogous to music in those respects which it is the task of comparative
semiology to illuminate. One might ask whether the project of a semiology
of music does not merge into that of a science of musical analysis: we do
not hesitate to answer that this is so. As Gardin wrote, following

Morris,

>>semiology... then appears for what it is, the process of scientific analysis
itself applied to any subject.<50 But, it may be objected, what has become
of signs in all this? They were never in question, because the problem of
all scientific procedure is just that of how to translate the sign system which
is constituted by the subject itself, decode and analyse it into that other
sign system, the investigator's metalanguage, with the eventual aid, as Saussure foresaw, of lingustics, the science of that particular sign system
which is language.51

Sazetak
LINGVISTIKA: NOVI PUT ZA MUZICKU ANALIZU?
Ako se prihvati shvacanje da je, u najsirem saussurovskom smislu, semiologija
znanost koja nastoji koristiti lingvisticke uzore u analizi nelingvistickih podrucja, moze
se ciniti zacudno da je muzicka semiologija jedna od zadnjih znanosti sto su se osnovale, jer je glazba - sacinjena od pojedinacnih jedinica - osobito pogodna za proucavanje lingvistickim metodama. Clanak usporeduje muzicku i lingvisticku analizu s
cetiri stajalista koja odgovaraju cetirma fazama ispravno shvacenog znanstvenog postupka: 1. kakva je priroda podrucja sto se analizira, 2. kako izabrati elemente koje
analiza drii podesnima, 3. u kojem se nadjeziku izrazava teorija samoga podrucja,
4. kakvi su upotrebljeni postupci da se potvrdi ili obesnazi teoretska konstrukcija?
Da bi se odgovorilo na prvo pitanje, utvrduje se da muzicka teorija nije odijelila
imanentne i vanjske pristupe podrucju, sinkronicka i dijakronicka stajalista, i da nije
smatrala nuznim razlikovanje koje bi se moglo usporediti s de Saussureovom podjelom
na jezik/govor.
Sto se ti&e drugoga, lingvisti su razradili komutativne i distributivne postupke da
bi razgranicili i odredili jedinice. Muzikolozi su se zadovoljili da na glazbene cinjenice
koje treba uzeti u obzir prenesu jednu lose definiranu terminologiju. 1Muzickace se
semiologija moci osloniti na jasno eksplicirane postupke segmentacije u radovima Nicolasa Ruweta.
50 J. C. GARDIN, Analyse semiologique et litterature, op. cit., p. 7.
51 We would like to thank Marcelle Dechenes-Harvey, Marcelle Guertin and Louise
Hirbour-Paquette for their friendly criticism and advice.

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Kao rezultat rada na dokumentarnoj automatici, s metalingvisti&cogse stajaligta

predlaie da se zaklju&'i istra'ivanja izraze u Sto je vi'e niogu&' formaliziranom je.
ziku da bi se izbjegle dvomislenosti i mogu6e krivotvorenje teorije.
Na kraju, generativna je graniatika prikazana kao postuipakprovjere u odnosu na
taksonomsku analizu koja, za razliku od prve, ide od poruke k sustavu; pokazuje se da
bi sustav generativnih pravila, prethodno osnovanih na empirijskom isijecanju muzi&ih tekstova, dopustio konstruiranjeneke semiostilistike, to jest simulacije stilistizke
kompetencije muziEara (u smislu Chomskog).

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