Around the Edge of Language: Intonation

Abstract

The surface of the ocean responds to the forces that act upon it in movements resembling the ups and downs of the human voice. If our vision could take it all in at once, we would discern several types of motion, involving a greater and greater expanse of sea and volume of water: ripples, waves, swells, and tides. It would be more accurate to say ripples on waves on swells on tides,because each larger movement carries the smaller ones on its back.