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Sonorant conspiracy137on the example of singleton [ ® sINg®lt ®n] in (28). Note that this form is interestingfor at least two reasons. Firstly, it represents a complex fiveconsonantcluster. Secondly, there are three sonorants and all of them appearin a weak position, hence are predicted to respond to the positionalweakness.(28) PG PGCVCVCVCVCVCV|||||sINPg«®lPt«®nPIn (28) the final sonorant being in a weak position spreads to the precedingnucleus and docks on to it, replacing the original segment, thatis, the schwa. The nuclear position occupied by the sonorant governsthe preceding empty nucleus, the one between [lPt]. This governed emptynucleus follows another sonorant [l] which, similarly to the final [n], appearsin a weak position. The situation here is identical to the one foundat the end of the word and so the syllabic consonant governs the precedingempty nucleus. The first sonorant of this word also appearsin a weak position. However, being preceded by a regular vowel, itspreads backwards and docks on to the place element of the obstruent,that is, [g]. In consequence, both consonants give rise to a partial geminate,i.e. [Ng].Let us now focus our discussion on the last context in which syllabicconsonants arise, that is word-initially. In what follows we provide someevidence demonstrating that syllabic consonants, in contradistinction tobogus clusters and vowel syncope (to be discussed in the following sections),can appear word-initially. Word-initially, just as in other contextsdiscussed above, one condition which allows the sonorant to spread mustbe satisfied, namely, the sonorant is preceded by the schwa. This simplymeans that the initial syllable is unstressed and hence contains the schwa,e.g. until [ ®n ® tIl], balloon [b ®l ® uÉn], convulsed [k ®n ® v¿lst], confetti [k ®n ® feti]/[k ®µ ® feti].The representation of confetti and until is provided in (29).(29) a. PG PGC 0V 0CVCVCVCV||||k«®µPfeti