Counterpoint and Collocation

Abstract

We know a lot about which words go together in our native language. In English we say “She caught a cold and then the flu.” We would never say “She caught the cold and then a flu.” Often we cannot articulate a rule for such knowledge—we just pick it up from hearing language in use. Counterpoint in music was learned the same way. Millions of combinations of tones were possible, but only certain combinations were preferred. Linguists call them “collocations,” meaning things co-located much more frequently than might be expected if combinations were random. The chapter surveys several contrapuntal collocations taught in Naples.