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I. The framework1. IntroductionThe main goal of the present chapter is to illustrate and discuss the majortheoretical assumptions underlying the phonological framework employedin this study. Despite the fact that the Strict CV model is assumed to bea logical continuation of the research programme set by GovernmentPhonology, with which it shares the foundations and major tenets, wehave not decided to introduce the basics of the latter model. The reasonbehind this choice is twofold. Firstly, the introduction and comparison ofboth models would require another work of comparable size, and besides,such comparisons have already been made and are readily available.Secondly and more importantly, Government Phonology (GP) alreadyhas an established position as a theoretical framework and hasbeen described, often in a reader-friendly way, by many researchers. Herewe simply presuppose the reader’s basic knowledge of the GovernmentPhonology framework.The chapter is organised in the following way. Section 2 is devoted tothe presentation of the Strict CV model. The discussion is focused onsome of the most significant differences between GP and its Strict CVversion. Next, section 3 explores the evolution of the word-boundarymarker ‘#’ in phonological theory. Starting from The Sound Pattern ofEnglish (Chomsky and Halle 1968), we provide a brief survey ofthe previous solutions to the problem of the word boundary and disjunctivity,that is, {_C and _#}. The conclusion that we reach is that neitherthe previous theories nor GP are able to provide a satisfactory explanationof this problem. A successful solution becomes available in a theory