Abstract

This paper focuses on the interaction between focus-sensitive, propositional only and sentences containing elements from standard contextual orders, ranking orders and quantifiers scales. It addresses some problematic evidence for approaches based on the contextual blindness assumption as extended to only . It submits solutions based on a Strawsonian treatment of asymmetric entailment and on the appreciation of the role of structural factors in inducing the contextual orderings. Its conclusion is that approaches based on the contextual blindness assumption should to be preferred, thus lending new plausibility to the parallel between the interpretation of exclusives and the exhaustification procedure in scalars and questions.