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138 Bogus clusters, syllabic consonants and vowel syncope. . .b. PG PGC 0V 0C VCV|PC|tV|IC|lV|P«®nSimilarly to other contexts, word-initial syllabic consonants arise in responseto the positional weakness. Interestingly, the sonorant in (29a)simultaneously spreads in two opposite directions. It replaces the schwaon the left and docks on to the place of articulation of the following obstruent.In (29b) the syllabic consonant is the first segment in a row. Recallfrom the previous chapter the discussion of the possible word-initialconsonant clusters in English and Polish. It was pointed out that the differencein the phonotactic patterns between English and Polish boils downto the status of the word-initial empty CV unit. Thus, English in oppositionto Polish enjoys an active CV unit, which is represented in (29) asCV 0. Since the initial CV unit is a phonological object and is empty it requiresa governor. This requirement is satisfied by the syllabic consonantwhich, recall, is a sound governor and licensor. Additionally, it mustbe noted here that in Czech, in which the initial empty CV unit is claimedto be inactive, syllabic consonants never appear word-initially.To sum up, the analysis of English syllabic consonants in this sectionconfirms the proposal put forward in Scheer (2003). Thus in English,just as in German, the reaction of sonorants to positional weakness isthe spreading to the preceding nuclear position if it is occupied by theweakest vowel, that is, schwa. 21 It has been pointed out that syllabic consonantsappear in the intervocalic position, i.e. after schwa and beforea nucleus either empty or realised. Sonorants react in the intervocalic positiondue to the fact that vowels in English are not able to govern nucleiwith lexically present material. In other words, our stand is that in EnglishProper Government can hold only between a vowel and a lexicallyempty nuclear position. In consequence, the sonorant in the intervocalicposition is both governed and licensed. According to the Coda Mirrorboth contexts, i.e. before an empty nucleus and intervocalically, representweak positions. The general conclusion emerging from the analysisabove is that syllabic consonants appear in weak positions. Anotherconsequence of the discussion in this section is that the schwa-zeroalternations or vowel syncope in English are never the result of Proper21Note that the origin of Polish trapped sonorants can be explained in the samefashion, that is, as the reaction to the positional weakness. The only difference betweensyllabic consonants and trapped sonorants is the direction of spreading.