Does Language Determine Music in Tone Languages
Does Language Determine Music in Tone Languages
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语言决定音调语言中的音乐吗
DOI：
10.5406/ethnomusicology.56.2.0266
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发表时间：
2012
期刊：
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
Murray Schellenberg
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Murray Schellenberg
据我保守估计，世界上百分之五十到六十的语言都是声调语言，即音高影响单词含义的语言（Yip 2002）。这些语言中的声调是音素的，这意味着改变单词的音高（或音高轮廓）可以极大地改变单词的含义。由于音高在这些语言中与意义紧密相连，而且音高也是音乐的主要组成部分之一，因此语音语言中语音旋律和歌曲旋律的相互作用多年来一直令学者们着迷。正如所预料的，存在着各种各样的方法、各种各样的结论，而且重要的是，也存在各种各样的假设。 （在上一篇文章 [Schellenberg 2009] 中，我讨论了这些不同的假设。）本文对其中一个假设进行了更仔细的检验：声调语言中的语音旋律决定歌曲旋律的想法。从表面上看，这似乎是一个相当合理的假设：如果改变音高可以改变含义，那么歌曲旋律必须保留含义，从而保留语音旋律。这种假设经常出现在文献中。例如，施耐德（Schneider，1961：204）指出“语音音调[原文如此]和音乐音调必须明确相关”。 Rycroft (1959:28) 说，“用‘音调语言’对音乐进行歌词设置，要么限制旋律自由……要么使词的选择变得更加严格。” Jones (1959) 和 Schneider (1942, 1950, 1961) 的大部分文章都试图为特定语言中的语音旋律和歌曲旋律之间的差异提供韵律解释。本文着眼于集体证据，得出的结论是，语言并不是音调语言中音乐的决定因素，而是音乐在方便时容纳语言，但完全愿意并且能够凌驾于语言要求之上。以下部分简要介绍了
I is conservatively estimated that between fifty and sixty percent of the world’s languages are tone languages—languages where pitch contributes to the meaning of words (Yip 2002). Tone in these languages is phonemic, which means that changing the pitch (or pitch contour) of a word can drastically change the meaning of the word. Since pitch is so closely tied to meaning in these languages and pitch is also one of the main components of music, the interaction of speech melody and song melody in tone languages has fascinated scholars for years. As may be expected, there have been a variety of methodologies, a variety of conclusions, and, significantly, a variety of assumptions. (In a previous article [Schellenberg 2009] I have discussed these different assumptions.) This paper is a closer examinination of one of the assumptions: the idea that speech melodies in a tone language dictate song melodies. On the surface, this seems a fairly reasonable assumption: if changing the pitch can change the meaning, the song melody must, perforce, preserve the meaning and, consequently, the speech melody. This assumption shows up frequently in the literature. Schneider (1961:204), for example, states that “speechtone [sic] and musical tone must be definitely correlated.” Rycroft (1959:28) says that “the setting of words to music in a ‘tone language’ either places limitations upon melodic freedom . . . or else makes word selection a more exacting matter.” Jones (1959) and Schneider (1942, 1950, 1961) devote most of their articles to trying to provide prosodic explanations for differences between speech melody and song melody in specific languages. This article looks at the collective evidence and concludes that language is not a determinant of music in tone languages, but rather that music accommodates language when it is convenient but is perfectly willing and able to override linguistic requirements. The following section looks briefly at the