Additives pitching in: L*+H signals ordered Focus alternatives

Approaches to the meaning of intonational meaning differ in associatingeach subcomponent with a meaning that remains invariant across contours (e.g.Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg 1990) or treating a contour as contributing its meaningholistically (e.g. Goodhue et al. 2015). This paper argues for a common core ofthe L*+H pitch accent across two intonation contours, the Rise-Fall-Rise (RFR,e.g. Ward & Hirschberg 1985), and a novel contour coined the Downscale-Contour(DSC). Both contours are analyzed as indicating the presence of an alternative withrespect to a scale derived from the QUD, but differ in the relative strength of thisalternative, with the DSC indicating a weaker and the RFR a stronger one.