Linguistic inferences from pro-speech music Musical gestures generate scalar implicatures, presuppositions, supplements, and homogeneity inferences

Language has a rich typology of inferential types. It was recently shown that subjects are able to divide the informational content of new visual stimuli among the various slots of the inferential typology: when gestures or visual animations are used in lieu of specific words in a sentence, they can trigger the very same inferential types as language alone (Tieu et al., 2019). How general are the relevant triggering algorithms? We show that they extend to the auditory modality and to music cognition. We tested whether pro-speech musical gestures, i.e. musical excerpts that replace words in sentences, can give rise to the same inferences. We show that it is possible to replicate the same typology of inferences using pro-speech music. Minimal and complex musical excerpts can behave just like language, gestures, and visual animations with respect to the logical behavior of their content when embedded in sentences. Specifically, we found that pro-speech music can generate scalar implicatures, presuppositions, supplements, and homogeneity inferences.

Automated summary

Language has a variety of inferential types, and recent research shows that subjects can apply these types to gestures, visual animations, and even music in a similar way. In this study, the researchers found that pro-speech musical gestures, which are musical excerpts replacing words in sentences, can generate the same inferences as language.