Ralf Vogel - Rhythm in Cognition and Grammar

When using the word rhythm we often think of a sequence of pulses of some sort that contribute to the structural sensation of an event. We often associate it with the progress of patterns of sound as represented in music or speech, but rhythm can also be interpreted in a context beyond sound, in the arrangement of visual objects. It can also be associated with events involving non-physical objects such as the sequence of meetings, the appearance and disappearance of certain states of the mind and many other phenomena. All this suggests that what is common in what we associate rhythm with is the systematic occurrence of elements or features in general at distinct spaces, intervals or qualities (the latter may include various shades of color, degrees of intensity, illumination and probably any quality that is a basis for distinction between kinds of elements of objects or stages of the same object).

Rhythm can be essential both in its structural and perceptual/performative sense. The succession of constituting elements of an object (including physical objects and events alike) should be arranged in such a way that is characteristic of the given object, i.e. the intrinsic structural rhythm of elements can define the object itself. On the other hand, the relation between such elements has its significance in representation as well: perceiving a given structure one interprets it through some performative act (in music by musical performance, in language by speech, etc.). Whereas structural rhythm in this sense is an abstract phenomenon, in surface performance it needs physical means of representation. Whereas in music structural rhythm is most straightforwardly conceived to be associated with the temporal organization of successive elements and in language rhythm is usually understood similarly, time is only one means of representation. Even in music and language intensity also plays an important role: the succession of strong and weak accents as well as beats equally contribute to the perception of the underlying rhythmic structure (see the findings of metrical phonology: Liberman 1975, Liberman and Prince 1977, Nespor 1982, 1986, Selkirk 1984, Hayes 1984, 1995; its relation to music: Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983, and later work). Again, both in music and language further means of representation include the change of pitch values: playing the same musical tone or speaking at the same pitch level for a longer stretch of time gives the sense of monotony and one looses the perception of structure by being unable to capture the structure building rhythm behind the signal. (For a discussion of the cognitive relation between rhythm, timing and tempo in musical performance and perception as contrasted to musical notation cf. Clark 1999, Honing 2001, 2002).

Although time appears to be a fairly general means of representation for rhythm, arrangement of elements across space can also be an important choice, such as in case of architecture or visual art in general. With certain abstract, non-physical objects, like states of mind, emotions etc., systematic variation of degrees of other characteristic properties is a possible form of structural representation, too, just think of, e.g. cases of bipolar disorder. Finally, more than one means of representation often contribute to structural representation in combination: in the case of speech alone, timing, change of F0 and intensity often (but not in a mandatory manner) join in this performative function.

In this work on rhythm we will follow the main assumptions of our earlier proposal (Hunyadi 2009, 2010, and to appear ) regarding the cognitive basis of the representation of structure across modalities. According to this proposal, structure is represented in terms of groups, grouping itself follows certain cognitive principles, and the representation of grouping is structure dependent.

Whatever the physical nature of the means of representation of structural rhythm, rhythm can be conceived as the product of grouping . Namely, rhythm is always about the succession of more than one, actually more than two elements of some sort, and this succession needs to be structured. Structure means that there must be some boundary between the elements, consequently, a rhythmic structure always involves at least two groups of elements. Since, accordingly, the minimal number of elements involving two groups is three, the minimal rhythmic pattern is such that one group consists of two elements and the other group consists of just one element (this single-element group in mathematics is called the trivial group ) and there is a boundary of some sort between the two groups. This boundary can then be represented on the surface (alone or in combination) by a change in time, change in pitch, change of spacial coordinates or other relevant physical and measurable features.

Considering grouping as a general principle of representing structural rhythm across various modalities (music, language, dance, architecture etc.), we believe that in order to capture the basic underlying and at the same time meaningful properties of linguistic rhythm we need to study how grouping in language is related to properties of grouping in general. Accordingly, in order to do so, first we need to identify the general properties of grouping in a modality abstracted away from language as far as possible and then identify these, supposedly language-independent, general underlying properties of grouping in language as well, i.e. in linguistic patterns that are generally believed to have an underlying rhythmic structure.