Climax, or cumulative emphasis, consists of a series of particulars or
emphatic words or sentences, in which each successive particular, word, or
sentence rises in force and importance to the last.

INFLECTIONS.

The inflections of the voice, consist of those peculiar slides which it
takes in pronouncing syllables, words, or sentences.

There are two of these slides, the upward and the downward. The upward is
called the rising inflection, and the downward the falling inflection, and
when these are combined it is known as the circumflex.

The rising inflection is used in cases of doubt and uncertainty, or when
the sense is incomplete or dependent on something following. The falling
inflection is used when the sense is finished and completed, or is
independent of anything that follows.

Indirect questions usually require the falling inflection.

Falling inflections give power and emphasis to words. Rising inflections
give beauty and variety. Rising inflections may also be emphatic, but their
effect is not so great as that of falling inflections.

1.

I _am_`.

Life is _short_`.