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Sonorant conspiracy131It should be clarified here that the representation of the agentive suffix –erin (24) is not complete. The low schwa [Œ] of the suffix results from thevocalisation of /R/ in the word-final position. It is perfectly logical to ascribea greater potential to full vowels than to empty ones (Cyran 2003). Itmeans that the suffix vowel in [vA†knŒ], unlike the empty one in [vA†g®N],has the ability to both govern and license. Now the reason why the schwain (24) disappears is the fact that it is governed by the suffix vowel. Moreover,the latter vowel licenses the preceding nasal. In this situation thenasal escapes the negative influence of the government while being licensedat the same time. As the latter context describes a strong positionit explains the fact why the nasal does not search for the place to spread,hence the lack of both homorganicity and syllabicity in (24). Furthermore,note that the schwa in (23) and (24) is suppressed for two different reasons.In (23) it is displaced by the spreading nasal, while in (24) it isgoverned by the following suffix vowel. Finally, the reason why the obstruentsin suffixed forms undergo devoicing again boils down to the presenceof the suffix vowel or, to be precise, to the presence of the governed emptynucleus following the obstruent. In traditional accounts of German finaldevoicing the phenomenon is claimed to take place in the coda position(Rubach 1990, Hall 1992, W iese 1996). In Brockhaus’s (1995)account obstruent devoicing appears before an empty nuclear position. TheStrict CV model combines both proposals because the traditional coda isdescribed here as the position before a governed empty nucleus. Furthermore,this solution provides a ready answer to the absence of obstruentdevoicing before syllabic consonants and additionally confirms the leftwardspreading of the structures in question. In short, in the latter situation thenuclear position after the obstruent is not empty, but is occupied by thefollowing sonorant. Note that by claiming that devoicing appears beforegoverned empty nucleus we can rule out the representation under (20a)above. Were it correct, we would observe obstruent devoicing in all theforms under (19), which is, however, not the case there. Finally, the solutionproposed by Scheer (2003) explains why syllabic consonants ariseonly after a schwa and why they are so common word-finally. As for theformer, it is a widely accepted fact that the schwa is the next but last stepon the lenition trajectory from a full vowel to zero. It follows that a fullvowel, unlike a schwa, is not weak enough to be displaced by the sonorant.The reason why they appear so readily at the right margin is the fact thatthis is a weak position. Concluding, Scheer (2003) predicts three differentreactions of sonorants to the positional weakness. Thus, in order togain stability the sonorant may spread to a neighbour to share the placeelement. Secondly, it may spread to the preceding nucleus displacing schwa9*