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Bogus clusters and vowel syncope121(14)a.KnieknetenKnöchelKnotenKnaufb.GnomgnostischGnuGneisGnade[ ® kniÉ][ ® kneÉt«n][ ® kn{«l][ ® knoÉt«n][ ® knaUf][ ® gnoÉm][ ® gnOstIS][ ® gnuÉ][ ® gnaIs][ ® gnAÉd«]‘knee’‘knead’‘knuckle’‘knot’‘knob’‘gnome’‘gnostic’‘gnu’‘gneiss’‘grace’Brockhaus (1995), similarly to Vennemann (1968:181), claimsthat the representation of the word-initial [kn]/[gn] clusters does not deviatefrom that of the same clusters in the word-medial position, i.e. theyare separated by the empty nuclear position (15).(15)a.b.ONONONONONONON||||||||||||xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx||||||||||||gPnA: d « r e:gPn«tPIn order to prove the legitimacy of the solution in (15a), Brockhausprovides the historical development of some of the clusters in (14) (see Drosdowskiet al. (1976—1981)). Thus, Gneis is likely to develop from MHGg(a)neist and Gnade can be related to OHG ginâda and MHG g(e)nade. 12This solution, however, suffers from one serious weakness, namely, giventhat in NSG both word-final and word-internal empty nuclei triggerFOD, we predict that the same should hold true in the word-initial position.Specifically, the word-initial obstruent [g] in (14b) is followed by theempty nucleus which means that it should be neutralised to [k]. Thisprediction, however, fails as the word-initial [g] is never affected in anyof the dialects. Brockhaus (1995) confines herself to indicating that12Searching for additional evidence, the author reports on the realisation of theforms in (14) by linguistically naive speakers of English. They, according to Brockhaus(1995), insert a schwa between a stop and the nasal so it means that at least forthem the [kn] cluster occupies two separate onsets.