Your explanation of syncopation is not one that I recognize. It does not require "several rhythms at the same time" (one implied and one actual are sufficient, hence the prefix "syn") (e.g., I can make a syncopated rhythm by clapping my hands, no need for additional rhythms, so long as a basic pulse is implied), and it does not "prevent rhythmic resolutions" or occlude a "definite sense of closure" (in fact, a syncopation works because at the end of the moment of syncopation there's closure). It's a basic term for alternating/shifting accents or ghosting them that can be applied to dance music or a violin melody or anything reallly. And on the contrary, this does not create ambiguity, it creates a very identifiable rhythmic phenomenon - which is why it's gotten its own term in the first place. Maybe I've just misunderstood you?
No, you understand syncopations well. I just have a non-standard take on the issue. Iand i'm not expressing myself well -- it's a highly technical issue. think what is really going on musically is that there are several rhythms going on. The standard understanding says: normally weak beats are strong. This implies one rhythm (giving the normally weak beats (and the corresponding strong beats), and a second one which emphasises the weak beats. So i take "several" here to mean "at least two"
But in practise one needs more i reckon. You can put
a constant 123123123... on top of a 123412341234... and it wouldn't feel syncopated in the way that clave does. But the boundaries are fluid. I think the overlay of several rhythms (implied or otherwise) is the key phenomenon. (However, and contradicting myself slightly, the classic latin beats like clave, can be interpreted as either 6/8 or 4/4, but, because only not all beats are played, and because the players usually imply one of the two more strongly than the other, the ambiguity is not as crass as in some technotracks that put blatant 123123... ontop of a blatant 12341234...)
Syncopation subverts listener expectation regarding the beat structure. I think -- and that's pure speculation -- that what goes on in the brain when listening to music, is that the brain tries to predict what's happening next (this is probably a left-over of the brain parts responsible for language learning, which is a gigantic pitch-and-rhythm pattern detection exercise). and syncopation plays with this: it gives enough structure so the brain always feels like it has just locked into the rhythm, and then that feeling is subverted by the anticipations that make weak beats strong. Because the brain is constantly not getting the rhythm right, it wants more to predict better next time.
The fact that highly syncopated rhythms have a definite flavour is correct, but i think it happens at a much higher level of pattern recognition. In the same sense that white noise sounds very characteristic, but at a more detailed level we are unable to predict white noise, except in its unpredicatbility.
