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126 Bogus clusters, syllabic consonants and vowel syncope. . .ability to spread and dock on to a neighbouring position. In this way theygain the stability required to avoid lenition. As depicted in (17b) the nasalcan reach the following plosive and dock on to its place of articulation. Inconsequence, they end up as a partial geminate cluster. Such structures,as pointed out by Scheer (2003), are generally recognised as more stable,geminates being the most stable structures of all. See Kenstowiczand Pyle (1973), Schein and Steriade (1986), McCarthy (1986),Honeybone (2002).Summing up, the general picture emerging from Scheer’s (2003)proposal is that it is a sonorant that is the agent, while an obstruentbehaves like a patient. This is, in fact, a welcome situation as sonorantsin the Strict CV model play an active role in other structures like in, forexample, Infrasegmental Government (see Chapter One). Furthermore,in the vast majority of cases the nasal assimilates to the following obstruentas depicted in (17); there are, however, rare cases like German(see section 2.2 above) where the nasal assimilates to a preceding obstruent,e.g. offen [/Of«n] > [/Of ®µ] ‘open’. The phenomenon in question hasbeen described and analysed in the Strict CV framework by Scheer(2003). Thus, in what follows we shall discuss the solution to progressivenasal assimilation in German offered by him. As will be shown in thefollowing sections, this proposal can be used to explain not only syllabicconsonants but also bogus clusters and vowel syncope, in this way yieldingthe promised common link between all three phenomena.In order to provide positive evidence for the assumption mentionedabove, i.e. that sonorants in weak positions become active, Scheer(2003) analyses various phenomena in different languages. He presentsthe solution to the behaviour, i.e. lenition, of nasals in final codas (insouthern dialects of French, in Somali and Polish), as well as the genesisof nasal vowels in French, Portuguese and Slavic. He also gives the exampleof progressive nasal assimilation and syllabic consonants in German.Since, however, this chapter deals mostly with syllabic consonants, inthe remainder of this section we shall concentrate only on the latter.Homorganic nasal plus obstruent clusters are a well-documented,cross-linguistic phenomenon (Gussmann 2002). As mentioned above,the direction of assimilation is granted a universal status, i.e. an obstruentimposes its place of articulation on the preceding nasal. There are,however, rare cases where an obstruent is followed by a sonorant, e.g.German. What is important here is the fact that the result in both scenariosis identical, that is, a nasal acquires the place of articulation of theneighbouring obstruent. Note that the reverse homorganic clusters areproblematic for GP as it is the nasal that follows an obstruent. As mentionedabove, in the GP model nasals are not complex enough to govern