The Origins of Music: Preface - Preface

(first musilanguage stage) to a later stage of phrase formation based

jointly on combinatorial syntax and expressive-phrasing principles

(second musilanguage stage).These three overall properties are thought

to make independent but related contributions to the global melody of

a musilinguistic phrase,as shown on the right side of figure 16.3.

Lexical Tone

This refers to the use of pitch in speech to convey semantic (lexical)

meaning.Languages that make extensive use of lexical tone as a

suprasegmental device are called tone or tonal languages.As they tend

to be viewed as oddities by linguists,theories of language origin tend to

280 Steven Brown

Figure 16.3

Summary of the properties of the musilanguage stage.The model highlights three impor-

tant properties of the putative musilanguage precursor.Three general properties are

thought to provide an adequate description of the precursor of both music and language,

and emerge in the form of two distinct stages.The first musilanguage stage is a unitary

lexical-tonal system.This involves a system of discrete and pitched vocalizations that are

functionally referential in a very broad sense.The second musilanguage stage simultane-

ously introduces phrase formation and phrasing.Phrase formation is based on simple

combinatorial principles involving lexical-tonal elements introduced during the first

musilanguage stage.Four mechanisms of phrasing are also introduced that modulate the

acoustic properties of these combinatorially generated phrases,as described in the text.

Phrase melody is thought to receive three independent but related contributions:the sum

of lexical-tonal elements,global melodic contours,and expressive modulation.