 This comparison of various selected approaches to default interpretations in semantics and pragmatics allows for some generalizations. Firstly, it is evident from the surveyed literature that, contrary to the assumptions of some experimental pragmaticists, there is no one, unique ‘default model’ of utterance interpretation. Instead, default (and salient) meanings are recognised in many approaches to utterance interpretation but they are defined by different sets of characteristic features. Next, in the present state of theorizing, data-based analyses and experimenting, while the rationale for default interpretations is strong, some of the properties of such interpretations are still in need of further investigation. For example, the discussions of locality of defaults and their subdoxastic arrival are in need of empirical support before they can be taken any further. In other words, a ‘fluid character’ is in need of empirical identification – and even more so when we add the dynamic perspective of interactively achieved, co-constructed meanings.