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III. Bogus clusters, syllabic consonantsand vowel syncopeand what they have in common1. IntroductionThe present chapter explores three apparently unrelated phenomena,i.e. syllabic consonants, vowel syncope and bogus clusters. The analysisis based on the examples from two languages, English and German. It isour ambition to provide convincing evidence for the intimate relationshipbetween the three phenomena, which will in consequence allow usto offer a unified solution to them. Since the phenomena in question havealways been a source of bewilderment among linguists, the first part of thechapter will be devoted to an introduction of the relevant facts anda brief discussion of previous accounts. We shall look at the distribution ofsyllabic consonants in English and discuss a rare process of progressivenasal assimilation in German. Since it is a sonorant which plays a keyrole in such phenomena, we shall look more deeply at the behaviour ofthese consonants in similar structures, i.e. vowel syncope and bogus clusters.It will be pointed out that the result of vowel syncope is the consonantsequence which resembles a bogus cluster, that is, a cluster whichis neither a branching onset nor a coda-onset sequence. Moreover, it willbecome evident that although English abounds in syncope-related andtrue bogus clusters, their distribution is severely curtailed, that is, theyare possible only in the word-internal position. A similar situation isfound in German with the difference that this language is said to allow forword-initial bogus clusters. The second part of the chapter addresses thequestions and problems which are accumulated in the initial sections. Itwill become evident that all three phenomena, i.e. syllabic consonants,vowel syncope and bogus clusters, have the same origin and stem from