Both human language and music can be modeled as discrete, combinatorial systems. Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983) demonstrated that applying the methods of formal linguistics to the study of (tonal) music provides a strategy for exposing homologies between these two systems. But while syntactic properties of music have attracted a considerable amount of interest (Rohrmeier 2011; Granroth-Wilding and Steedman 2014; see Rohrmeier & Pearce 2018 for an survey), meaning-related aspects have by and large remained understudied (an exception is Schlenker 2019, 2022). In part, this might be due to the widely held belief that unlike natural language, music neither has a lexicon of atomic form-meaning pairs (Katz and Pesetsky 2011) nor employs compositional mechanisms to recursively derive complex meanings. I will explore some consequences of these two assumptions by making explicit what they entail for the study of music from a linguistic perspective.
8 March 2023 at 18:30 CET (UTC+1)
Winfried Lechner (University of Athens)
Natural Language Semantics and Music
How to attend: Attend via Zoom (meeting ID: 842 8244 2460; passcode: 678868) or dial in by phone
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OFAI is delighted to announce its 2023 Winter/Spring Lecture Series, featuring an eclectic lineup of internal and external speakers.
The talks are intended to familiarize attendees with the latest research developments in AI and related fields, and to forge new connections with those working in other areas.
Lectures will take place on Wednesdays at 18:30 Vienna time. All lectures will be held online via Zoom; in-person attendance at OFAI is also possible for certain lectures. Attendance is open to the public and free of charge. No registration is required.
Visit our Lecture Series web page for further details and connection instructions for the individual talks: https://www.ofai.at/lectures
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