Figure 10.

The musilingusitic contiuum. At the extremes of the continuum are language and music, represented both vocally and instrumentally. In the middle of the continuum is the most interactive function of songs with words. This can be accomplished in either a logogenic or melogenic manner. Sitting in between standard speech and songs with words are intermediate functions in which the lexicality of speech is maintained but in which the acoustic properties of the production lean in the direction of music, such as rhythmic speech and prosodic speech. There are no comparable intermediate functions on the music side of the continuum since a “linguistic wall” ensures that lexicality is a categorical feature, rather than a continuous acoustic feature like musicality. Vocable singing is shown here as being in the melogenic style. It need not be, but is most commonly found in this form in world musics.