Nicolas Ruwet

Ruwet was born in Saive, Belgium on 31 December 1932. In his youth he studied music: discovering the then little-known music of Arnold Schoenberg and seeking a career as a composer.{{sfn|Aroui|Zribi-Hertz|2002|p=109}} He initially studied Romance philology at the University of Liège. As he turned towards linguistics, he studied from 1959 onwards with Émile Benveniste, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and André Martinet in Paris.{{sfn|Aroui|Zribi-Hertz|2002|p=109}} Later, he studied with Noam Chomsky and Roman Jakobson, both influences, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ruwet is best known for his work as a linguist and critic, but he was also a significant figure in musical analysis. He attempted to make his analyses completely objective by not making any a priori assumptions about how the music worked, instead breaking the piece down into small parts and seeing how those parts related to each other, thus discovering the syntax of the piece without reference to any external sources or norms. His work in this field constitutes a kind of musical semiology and his analytical methods were later named paradigmatic analysis.{{sfn|Aroui|Zribi-Hertz|2002|pp=109–110}}

Grove Music Online notes that "Though not primarily a musicologist, he has been a fundamental thinker in the field of the Semiotics of music." Some of his musical analyses were published along with other works in {{ill|Langage, musique, poésie|fr}} [Language, Music, Poetry] (1972). Among his students was the musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez, himself a seminal music semiotician.{{cite encyclopedia |last=Dunsby |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Dunsby |year=2001 |encyclopedia=Grove Music Online |title=Nattiez, Jean-Jacques |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.19619 |url-access=subscription |url=https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000019619 }} {{Grove Music subscription}}

Ruwet died at the age 68 on November 14, 2001.{{sfn|Aroui|Zribi-Hertz|2002|p=109}}

• {{cite book |last=Ruwet |first=Nicolas |year=1967 |title=Introduction à la Grammaire Générative |trans-title=An Introduction to Generative Grammar |language=French |publisher=Plon |location=Paris |isbn= |ref=no }}{{cite journal |last=Lyons |first=John |date=1969 |title=Nicolas Ruwet, Introduction à La Grammaire Générative. (Recherches En Sciences Humaines, 22.) Paris:Plon, 1967. Pp. 448 |journal=Journal of Linguistics |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=189–190 |doi=10.1017/S002222670000219X }}{{cite journal |last=Voisin |first=Wanda |date=1969 |title=N. Ruwet, Introduction à la grammaire générative |journal=Langue française |volume=1 |pages=108–110 |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/lfr_0023-8368_1969_num_1_1_5411 |language=French }}{{cite journal |last=Arrivé |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Arrivé |date=1969 |title=Nicolas Ruwet: Introduction à la grammaire générative, Paris, Plon, 1967. 448 p. |language=French |journal=Revue Romane |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages= |url=https://tidsskrift.dk/revue_romane/article/view/28890/25393 }}
• {{cite book |last=Ruwet |first=Nicolas |translator-last=Norval S.H. |translator-first=Smith |year=1973 |title=An Introduction to Generative Grammar |series=North-Holland Linguistic Series |publisher={{ill|North Holland|fr}} |location=Amsterdam |isbn=978-0-7204-6187-9 |ref=no |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontoge0000ruwe |author-mask=2 }}
• {{cite book |last=Ruwet |first=Nicolas |year=1972 |title=Langage, musique, poésie |language=French |publisher=Éditions du Seuil |location=Paris |ref=no |author-mask=2 }}
• {{cite book |last=Ruwet |first=Nicolas |translator-last=Goldsmith |translator-first=John |year=1991 |title=Syntax and Human Experience |series=Studies in Contemporary Linguistics |publisher=The University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=978-0-226-73221-3 |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=bpaA30UGCowC}} |ref=no |author-mask=2 }}

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• {{cite journal |last1=Aroui |first1=Jean-Louis |last2=Zribi-Hertz |first2=Anne |date=2002 |title=In Memoriam: Nicolas Ruwet 1933-2001 |language=French |journal=Le français moderne |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=109–111 |url=https://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.umr7023.cnrs.fr%2Fsites%2Fsfl%2FIMG%2Fpdf%2F2002c_In_Memoriam_Nicolas_Ruwet_TAP.pdf%2Findex.html#federation=archive.wikiwix.com&tab=url }}

• {{cite journal |last=Dominicy |first=Marc |date=2003 |title=Nicolas Ruwet (1933-2001) |journal=Travaux de linguistique |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=133-143 }}
• {{cite book |last=Nattiez |first=Jean-Jacques |author-link=Jean-Jacques Nattiez |editor-last1=Tasmowski |editor-first1=Liliane |editor-last2=Zribi-Hertz |editor-first2=Anne |year=1992 |title=De la musique à la linguistique: Hommages à Nicolas Ruwet |language=French |chapter=Nicolas Ruwet musicologue |pages=24–38 |publisher=Communication & Cognition |location=Ghent |isbn=978-90-70963-43-9 |oclc=29177212 }}

• "[http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/goldsmith/nicolas_ruwet.htm Nicolas Ruwet (1932-2001)]", UChicago.edu. ([https://web.archive.org/web/20020109034046/http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/goldsmith/nicolas_ruwet.htm Archived])
• [https://philpapers.org/s/Nicolas%20Ruwet Articles] by Nicolas Ruwet on PhilPapers

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Category:1932 births

Category:2001 deaths

Category:Belgian musicologists

Category:20th-century musicologists

Category:Boulez scholars

Category:Stockhausen scholars

Category:Webern scholars