  We discuss the Yano-Koonin-Podgoretskii (YKP) parametrization of the
two-particle correlation function for azimuthally symmetric expanding sources.
We derive model-independent expressions for the YKP fit parameters and discuss
their physical interpretation. We use them to evaluate the YKP fit parameters
and their momentum dependence for a simple model for the emission function and
propose new strategies for extracting the source lifetime. Longitudinal
expansion of the source can be seen directly in the rapidity dependence of the
Yano-Koonin velocity.
