The second code block in Re^4: Evil Interview Questions (memes) has what I think is the scenario you describe, but at no point does any item in the list have a different context from any other item.

Thank you. That was a special case that I wasn't previously aware of. Consider:

sub c
{
    my $context= wantarray
        ? "list"
        : defined wantarray ? "scalar" : "void";
    warn "$context( @_ )\n";
    return( 'a', 'b' );
}

sub t
{
    return( c("a"), c("b") );
}

my $scalar= ( c("one"), c("two"), c("three") );
warn $/;
$scalar= t();
__END__

void( one )
void( two )
scalar( three )

scalar( a )
scalar( b )
[download]

You see that a void context is used in cases "one" and "two". After some contemplation, I produced a theory as to why this is not done in the case of a list literal (use of comma) as the return expression of a subroutine. Consider:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $scalar= ( 1, 2, 3 );
sub t
{
    return( 1, 2, 3 );
}
$scalar= t();
__END__
Useless use of a constant in void context at - line 3.
[download]

Hmm. Or perhaps it is just an unintentional quirk.

Can you expand on this? I'm not sure what you mean by "ways of producing a list of scalar values" or what the "any number of different behaviors" would be.

See On Scalar Context (as well as my reply to it).