From speech to song : an interdisciplinary investigation of rhythm in English and Spanish
The general theoretical frame of this dissertation has to do with the study, from an interdisciplinary point of view, of the typological dichotomy between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, inasmuch as this distinction is valid at all. As a preliminary step I carry out a comparative examination of the basic prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish, in order to then analyse the standard versification systems of these two languages. In the central part of my dissertation, I explore the most important text-setting Optimality Theory constraints as applied to a corpus of English and Spanish folk and art song. My main objective in carrying out these three-level analyses is to check whether the actual setting of verse to music responds to some kind of underlying rhythmic constraints common to language prosody, verse prosody and music, and whether those constraints are ranked differently from language to language. My conclusions have to do with a correspondence between the timing typologies of language and rhythmic typologies of music. I find clear inconsistencies or mismatches between speech prosody, on the one hand, and verse and music rhythm, on the other. These inconsistencies work differently in
RodriÌguez-VaÌzquez, RosaliÌa
From speech to song : an interdisciplinary investigation of rhythm in English and Spanish. The general theoretical frame of this dissertation has to do with the study, from an interdisciplinary point of view, of the typological dichotomy between stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, inasmuch as this distinction is valid at all. As a preliminary step I carry out a comparative examination of the basic prosodic characteristics of English and Spanish, in order to then analyse the standard versification systems of these two languages. In the central part of my dissertation, I explore the most important text-setting Optimality Theory constraints as applied to a corpus of English and Spanish folk and art song. My main objective in carrying out these three-level analyses is to check whether the actual setting of verse to music responds to some kind of underlying rhythmic constraints common to language prosody, verse prosody and music, and whether those constraints are ranked differently from language to language. My conclusions have to do with a correspondence between the timing typologies of language and rhythmic typologies of music. I find clear inconsistencies or mismatches between speech prosody, on the one hand, and verse and music rhythm, on the other. These inconsistencies work differently in
speech song interdisciplinary investigation rhythm english_spanish general_theoretical frame study interdisciplinary point_view typological dichotomy stress syllable language inasmuch distinction valid all preliminary step carry comparative examination basic prosodic characteristic english_spanish order_analyse standard system two_language central_part explore important text setting optimality_theory constraint apply corpus english_spanish folk art song main_objective carry three_level analysis check whether actual set verse music respond kind underlying rhythmic constraint common language prosody verse prosody music whether constraint rank differently language language conclusion correspondence time typology language rhythmic typology music clear inconsistency mismatch speech prosody one_hand verse music rhythm other inconsistency work differently