On the relationships between syllables and musical notes in sung words in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Sung words often present prosodically ungrammatical structures. Such structures cannot be described exclusively on the basis of the linguistic environment in which they occur. Ungrammaticality manifests itself in the actualisation of phonological processes in environments in which such processes would be blocked and, conversely, in its blockage in environments in which their actualisation would be expected. The aim of this paper is to describe this behavior of sung words that contrasts with that of spoken words. We shall initially introduce examples that illustrate the extent of the problem as well as its ubiquity. Next, we shall argue that the observed ungrammaticality can be explained on the hypothesis that the correspondence between text and melody in sung words is regulated by well-formed conditions. One of these conditions — which we call Metrical Pairing — establishes that the relationship between note and syllable is always bijective, that is (I) each and every note in a melody must be assigned to one and only one syllable, and (II) each and every syllable in a string must be paired with one and only one note. The observance of this condition for well-formedness of sung words explains both the actualisation and the blockage of phonological processes that diverge from the phonology of spoken Portuguese.