Language and music: same structures, different building blocks
Professor David Pesetsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date/Time: 1st March 2011, 17:30 - 18:30
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I s there a special kinship between music and language? Both are complex, law-governed cognitive systems, Both are universal across the human species, but show some variation from culture to culture. Do the similarities run deeper than this? Although there is a rich tradition of speculation on this question, the current consensus among researchers is quite cautious. In this talk (presenting joint work with Jonah Katz), I will offer a linguist's perspective on the issue -- and argue against the cautious consensus. Though the formal properties of music and language do differ, I will propose that these differences reflect what is obvious: that the fundamental building blocks of language and music are different (for example: words vs. pitches). In all other respects, however -- what they do with these building blocks -- language and music are identical. Archive ItemsDavid Pesetsky is the Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics at MIT, where he received his PhD in 1982 and has taught since 1988. He has also taught at the University of Southern California and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Within linguistics, his specialty is syntax (including the syntax of Russian) -- and its interaction with other properties of human language, including semantics and word-structure. He is the author of two books and many articles in these fields. A dedicated amateur musician, he is also the first-chair second violin of the New Philharmonia Orchestra of Massachusetts.