WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?
As with Chomsky's theories, the success or failure of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's arguments will have to depend on something other than direct empirical confirmation. That is because, as the authors admit, if the mind has a “hard-wired” structure that enables it to process only some kinds of information, then any inquiry into its nature is itself constrained by the limits that a preset structure implies. If the theory is true, the innate knowledge (or “unconscious theory”) that enables a human being to acquire and use a language without direct instruction is by its very nature “unavailable to conscious introspection.”58 All one can do is adduce the otherwise unexplained (if not inexplicable) phenomena that led to the suspicion that such mental predispositions exist. This scattered indirect evidence is of three types: (1) clinical, (2) anthropological, and (3) historical.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 After Everything." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 25 Sep. 2023. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-009010.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 9 After Everything. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Late Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 25 Sep. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-009010.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 After Everything." In Music in the Late Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 25 Sep. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume5/actrade-9780195384857-div1-009010.xml
