ABSTRACT
The interpretationally relevant prosodic properties of alternative questions (AQs) are not limited to the utterance-final phrasal tones. The characteristic intonational feature of alternative questions standardly mentioned in the literature is that the must conclude with a final fall. Bolinger states that 'the intonation of AlQs is fairly uniform with the first accents B and the last A. The pattern correspond into national variants in Pierrehumbert's model, depending on not the sequence of H* pitch accents. The obligatoriness of the final fall distinguishes AQs from yes/no-questions (YNQs) and wh-questions (WHQs). The phrase accents are L-'s, the utterance interpreted an YNQ-sequence lacks the connotation of exhaustiveness of choices. The optional prosodic boundaries tendency placed to coincide with clause boundaries at the level of representation, the interpretational bias predicted. The default accent docks to the nuclear word of the respective prosodic phrase and spreads to its right edge.
