Declaring it volatile

Interesting... it seems to work only if the variable is the only expression inside the statement expression. "&({ x; })" and "&({ ; x; })" are accepted, but "&({ x; x; })" and "&({ (void)0; x; })" both fail as you described. Perhaps the compiler is reducing the trivial one-expression form to a normal expression before performing the l-value check. It would make more sense to me to either fail both cases or move the "&" operator inside the brackets, i.e. "&({ ...; x; })" internally becomes "({ ...; &x; })".

Is there any particular reason the statement expression can't be an l-value, provided the final form is an l-value, or was that case simply considered too error-prone?