 The presence or absence of cancellation in utterance interpretation is still a matter of dispute. It is difficult at present to decide between the rival views (i) that a particular GCI arose and was subsequently cancelled or (ii) that it did not arise at all due to being blocked by the context. There is not sufficient experimental evidence to support either stance. The answer to this question is closely dependent on the answer to the so-called globalism-localism dispute. If, as Levinson claims, default interpretations arise ‘locally’, out of the processing of a pre-propositional unit such as a word or a phrase, then they have to be subjected to frequent cancellation once the proposition has been processed. If, however, despite the incrementality of the interpretation process they arise post-propositionally, or ‘globally’, in accordance with Grice’s original assumption, then utterance interpretation can proceed without costly backtracking (see Geurts 2009; Jaszczolt 2008, 2009a, 2016a; Noveck &amp; Sperber 2004).