I got a message from Nigel asking what my sentence about the sandwich in the car could possibly mean. It occurs to me that others who might be inclined to respond may be similarly puzzled. Here's the clarification I sent to Nigel: This example is a little odd. Like many linguists, I amuse myself with pragmatically odd examples, but I suppose that's inappropriate when the example is meant to illustrate a pragmatic phenomenon (unless it's an odd pragmatic phenomenon). To put my sentence in context, imagine that there are three people, mutual friends, called Alex, Bob, and Cassandra. Alex has just been talking to Bob, who seemed really steamed that an as yet unnamed entity ate a sandwich that he, alex, had bought. Alex had left the sandwich unattended for a moment, and in that moment it had disappeared. Soon thereafter, while he was still looking for his sandwich, Alex spotted the as yet unnamed entity driving by in a car, his/her mouth full of Alex's sandwich. Later the same day, Alex relates the story to Bob with dramatic affective paralinguistic orchestration. Just as he's reached the climax of the narrative, Cassandra intrudes on the social interaction, whereupon Alex grimmaces, glowers, and walks off in a huff. This behavior of Alex's puzzles both Bob and Cassandra, who stop awhile to discuss their now absent friend. Bob relates all of Alex's story with bemused amazement. As he is again approaching the climax of the narrative, Cassandra half steps back and her expression changes from wry irony to shock. "Oh, that was ALEX's sandwich!" she says. And yntau Bob says: etc. Does it make more sense now? Maybe not. David Houghton (I just reread my little story, and it occurs to me that I got my narrative perspective confused. To recap without the local color: A meets B; A tells B about earlier interaction between A and X; C meets A and B; A leaves; B tells story of A and X; C reveals implicitly that X=C; B says "YOU were the one...")