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Sonorant conspiracy125agent and forces the preceding nasal to acquire the same place of articulation.Admittedly, this kind of explanation is not possible in the Strict CVmodel advocated in this study. Recall that in the latter model the inter-constituentgovernment along with the intra-constituent governmentare totally dispensed with. In other words, coda-onset sequences andbranching onsets do not exist. From the above it follows that partial geminates,similarly to other consonant clusters, are separated by the emptynucleus. The latter fact precludes any kind of relationship betweenthe partial geminates, which apparently constitutes a problem for the strictCV model. Note that it is not possible to explain why obstruents shouldimpose the place of articulation on the preceding nasals. Both consonantsare separate onsets which do not hold any governing relation; they areeven not adjacent. The inadequacy of the Strict CV approach to explainthe phenomenon in question is one of the reasons why Scheer (2003)poses a challenge to the traditional view on the partial geminates. Morespecifically, Scheer (2003) explores the idea that it is not the obstruentwhich enforces the place specification on the preceding sonorant. Quite thecontrary, it is the sonorant which is an active member of the partial geminatecluster and it takes what it needs from the following obstruent. Thereason behind the active status of sonorants lies in the fact that in suchclusters they appear in a weak position. Specifically, according to the lenitiontheory, that is, the Coda Mirror, the nasal in finger, for instance, appearsbefore an empty nuclear position and this position is identifiedwith the lenition site (17a). The following obstruent, on the other hand,occurs after a governed empty nucleus and before a vowel, and this isa typical strong position. The representation of finger in the Strict CVmodel is given in (17) below.(17) a. PG b. PGC|fV|IC|NV|PC|gV|«C|fV|ICVCV|«NPgThe empty nucleus separating the nasal from the plosive is properly governedby the following vowel. Since internal empty governed nuclei cannotdispense government or licensing, it means that the nasal in (17) isneither governed nor licensed. Thus, it follows that the nasal appears ina weak position. The most common response of segments to this unfavourableposition is the loss of the melodic material, i.e. lenition. Interestinglyenough, in weak positions sonorants, unlike obstruents, have the