Publication

Beats in Time across Music and Language

2026

Abstract

The timing of acoustic events in relation to different levels of structure building is a fundamental task in both language and music. While in music the timing of sounds and their relation to an abstract metrical grid is often used to create aesthetic effects, timing relations in language are commonly grammaticalized for the conventional construction of different levels of meaning, leaving only a narrow margin for rhythmic preferences of other sorts. Our chapter reviews functions of timing, and, specifically, metrical structure, in both music and language, suggests a unified form of representation inspired by autosegmental-metrical phonology and thereby directs the attention to principles of time-related structure building that are relevant for both communicative sound systems.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/6592e944-1920-453b-b3b4-9957657ec1fd

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2026

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/6592e944-1920-453b-b3b4-9957657ec1fd

About this result

Related concepts (26)

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of singular or plural, both of which are cited by using the hash sign (#) or by the numero signs "No." and "Nos." respectively. Some languages also have a dual, trial and paucal number or other arrangements.

Grammatical case

A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals) which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nominal groups consisting of a noun and its modifiers belong to one of a few such categories. For instance, in English, one says I see them and they see me: the nominative pronouns I/they represent the perceiver and the accusative pronouns me/them represent the phenomenon perceived.

Grammatical tense

In grammar, tense is a that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, and future. Some languages have only two distinct tenses, such as past and nonpast, or future and nonfuture. There are also tenseless languages, like most of the Chinese languages, though they can possess a future and nonfuture system typical of Sino-Tibetan languages.

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Beats in Time across Music and Language

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