Is your name Shýlock? May you stéad me? Will you pléasure me? Shall I knów your ánswer?
Questions that require an explanatory answer and cannot be answered by "Yes" or "No," do not convey an idea of incompleteness, being merely equivalent to the statement of a desire for certain information. Consequently they take the falling inflection:
Flav. Speàk, whàt tràde art thòu? 1st Cit. Why, sir, a carpenter. Mar. Where is thy leather àpron, and thy rùle? What dost thou with thy best appàrel òn?— You, sir, whàt tràde are yoù?
The purpose or motive of a question must be considered. We must know whether the question is asked for information, or whether its purpose is to give information; that is, whether it is only another way of making an assertion—what is sometimes called a question of appeal. When Shylock asks Portia: "Shall I not have barely my principal?" he does so with the direct purpose of learning his sentence. His question can be answered by "Yes" or "No" and the rising inflection is used. But when he asks: "On what compulsion must I?" he means simply to give the information that there is no power on earth to compel him. This is a complete thought, hence the falling inflection. Other examples are:
Have you e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
The opposite inflections on antithetical words or phrases are also due to this law of completeness and incompleteness. The first part of the antithesis usually has the rising inflection marking incompleteness, and the second, the falling, marking completeness.
Hís blast is heard at merry mórn, And mìne at dèad of nìght.
For this thy brother was déad, and is àlive again; and was lóst, and is foùnd.