Music Phonology Group
Music Phonology Research Group - Term 1 & 2
Music & Language Reading Group - Term 3
About us
Music Phonology Research Group runs in Term 1 and 2 and focuses on musical grammar, metrical structures, rhythm and prosody, addressing questions typically explored in phonology (see below for prerequisites, structure, groups’s activities and projects).
Music and Language Reading Group runs Term 3 and is open to anyone in the Division of Psychology & Language Sciences. In addition to phonology, the group covers broader language and linguistics related topics (see below for prerequisites, structure, groups’s activities and projects).
Music Phonology Research Group is attended by staff, undergraduate and graduate students at UCL and usually takes place fortnightly during term-time in Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF. A basic understanding of phonology principles is recommended, and a background in music is desirable but not essential. You don’t need to sing or play any instruments (although you are welcome to), but you will be asked to listen and analyse songs within the macro-genre of rap and pop sung in English. Please contact Davide Di Prete [d.diprete@ucl.ac.uk] for further information.
The Music & Language Reading Group has no formal prerequisites. It is open to anyone in the Division of Psychology & Language Sciences with an interest in any of the research areas within PALS and a general interest in music.
Meetings are held in UCL Chandler House (CH), unless otherwise stated.
Music Phonology Research Group. The research group tends to be split into two parts: theory (focussing on some aspects of Music Grammar and textsetting, presentations of current work, videos, guest lectures) and practice (music annotation, textsetting analysis, listening to pop and rap songs, group discussions).
Music & Language Reading Group. The reading group is organised around the discussion of a selected article, which is made available in advance (typically one week before each session). Meetings are discussion-based, with participants sharing their perspectives, ideas, and questions in an open and collaborative environment. Contact us to suggest papers you’d like to read and discuss with us. So far, we have read:
- Jackendoff, R. (2025): Perspectives from linguistics on music and language
- Bidelman, G. (2025): Phonemes, tones, and pitch
- Fiveash, A. & Tillmann, B. (2025): Syntax and prediction in music and language
- Charnavel, I. (2019): Steps Toward a Universal Grammar of Dance
Wed, 15 October 2025, 5-6 pm
Wed, 29 October 2025, 5-6 pm
Wed, 12 November 2025, 5-6 pm
Wed, 26 November 2025, 5-6 pm
Wed, 10 December 2025, 3-4 pm
All meetings are held in Room 101 Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF.
Wed, 14 January 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 28 January 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 11 February 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 25 February 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 11 March 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 25 March 2026, 5-6 pm
All meetings are held in Room 101 Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF.
Wed, 6 May 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 13 May 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 20 May 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 27 May 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 3 June 2026, 5-6 pm
Wed, 10 June 2026, 5-6 pm
All meetings are held in Room 101 Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF.
Group’s activities
Please see below for the group’s research activities.
Naddaf, J. (ongoing): Decolonising music and metrical phonology methodologies (Supervision: A. Nevins)
Zheng, Z. (ongoing): Segmental tonal harmonicity in Zulu (Supervision: A. Nevins)
Di Prete, D. (ongoing): Text-tune alignment and misalignment in Italian pop and rap songs (Supervision: A. Lamont, A. Nevins)
Naddaf, J. (2025): ‘Rap Fars’, from London to Tehran: Verbal stress misalignment in Persian hiphop. (Supervision: A. Nevins, D. Di Prete)
Zheng, Z. (2024): Segmental tonal harmonicity in Zulu. (Supervision: A. Nevins)
Ki, C. (2025): Tone-melody correspondence and the treatment of contour tones in Cantonese songs: An account from maximum entropy models. (Supervision: A. Lamont)
Katz, J. (2025): Phrasing, templates and parallelism in early hip-hop. Linguistics Seminar Series, UCL
Di Prete et al., (2025): Rhythms of expression: Intersections of music and language across genres, Special Interest Panel, LAGB 2025, Ipswich, UK.
Di Prete, D. & Ferraris, G. (2025): ‘Cruella De Vil, Cruella De Vil’: A cross-domain prominence mapping of right-headed constituents in Italian pop songs. LAGB 2025, Ipswich, UK.
Zheng, Z. (2025): A Tonal(ity) analysis of Zulu. LAGB 2025, Ipswich, UK.
Di Prete, D. (2025): Headless ternary feet. A case of catalexis on the left in Italian pop songs. LAGB 2025, Ipswich, UK.
Di Prete, D. (2024): Textsetting (mis)alignment in the metrics of Italian pop and Rap. LAGB 2024, Newcastle, UK.
Di Prete, D. & Turconi, M. (2026): ‘La voce è mobile’. Anacrusis in Italian opera, rap and pop songs: a revisited model of Italian metrical structures. AISV 2026, Milan Italy.
Di Prete, D. (2025): Accent shifting is asymmetrical. Evidence from textsetting of misaligned Lyrics in Italian pop and rap. OCP22, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Di Prete, D. (2024): Super Repair Strategy in Italian Textsetting Misalignment. ELM2, Storrs, USA
Di Prete, D. (2025): Super Linguistics: A grammar of music. ULAB XV 2025
Di Prete et al. (2025): Round table. Intersections of music and language: rhythm. LAGB 2025, Ipswich, UK.
Di Prete et al. (2025): Round table. Intersections of music and language: pitch. LAGB 2025, Ipswich, UK.
Contact us
To find out more about this research group, take part in our activities, learn about textsetting or simply explore the relationship between music and language for a possible topic for your BA long essay or MA thesis, please contact Davide Di Prete.
