Carnap famously proposed to rationally reconstruct theories as partially interpreted axiom systems, an idea which has been much discussed and criticized. In the late versions of his model, he uses Ramsey sentences as a means of making a clear-cut distinction between a physical component and an analytic component within scientific theories. A new version of an old argument due to Newman is usually considered as a serious threat for Carnap's programme of reconstruction, meant to show that Carnap's explication of theories using Ramsey sentences misses some important preanalytic intuitions we have about theories. The aim of this paper is to discuss both the applicability of Newman's argument to Carnap's programme and to propose a rejoinder to the objection.