Sorry, one of my previous posts had a couple of extraneous words in
one place; here is a corrected version.

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

Mark DeBellis wrote:
OK but I am saying, suppose the meaningful variable is a property of
an extended passage. So you have to listen to an uninterrupted
passage in order to perceive the property. Switching back and forth
will defeat the purpose, yes?

I would say this is a false premise. But perhaps you could give an
example of a meaningful variable that is a property of a longer passage.

I missed your post until now because, for some reason, it didn't
download (I'm using Free Agent) from my news server.

An example of a property that belongs to a temporally extended passage
without belonging to short slices of it is being a descending C major
scale, one octave long. That is a property a listener can perceive
the passage as having, but it is a property that belongs to the whole,
not short parts.

Another perceivable property that belongs to a temporal whole is the
property, belonging to a spoken sentence, of being syntactically well
formed.

Mark