 (43) would be considered false in a situation where there was in fact 7 tons of mud in this ditch, but only six tons were removed. This judgment can be accounted for by assuming that utterances of the second sentence in (43) are about a particular past situation that exemplifies the first sentence. This situation can then serve as a resource situation for the interpretation of the definite description the mud. If sentences like 42(a) have maximalized interpretations, it follows that the mud that was removed was all the mud in the ditch.