Meta and Escape

[carsten]

Hi,

are there any clear rules when a key binding using meta will be
automatically translated into the corresponding binding using the
escape key?  I find that my version of Emacs (latest Emacs 23 pretest)
behaves somewhat eratic, it seems to me.

For example:

 A binding to [(meta ?a)]  will also affect ESC-a
 A binding to [(meta return)] will not cause Esc-return to be defined.

Doe anyone know the rules of this game?

Thanks.

- Carsten