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Sonorant conspiracy141From the discussion above it follows that both phenomena, that is, vowelsyncope and syllabic consonants, have a common trigger, that is, a resonantoccurring in a weak position. This proposal results naturally from theobservation that in English only sonorants can enjoy a syllabic status.Moreover, this solution resolves the mystery of the context in which vowelsyncope operates. It is always a sonorant that follows a syncope site as onlysonorants can spread and become syllabic. Interestingly enough, vowelsyncope never appears before an empty nucleus; it can only appear ina situation where a sonorant is followed by a realised nucleus (see again(9a—b) above). Thus, in the word fiddle [ ® fId«l], for example, the final clusteris either separated by a schwa (in a very slow and careful pronunciation)or the sonorant [l] becomes syllabic [ ® fId®l]. Note, however, that theschwa separating the cluster is never syncopated. To put it differently, it isimpossible to arrive at the situation where the left branch of the syllabicconsonant is governed by the empty nucleus, that is, *[ ® fIdl] (31a). On theother hand, the latter situation is possible if the cluster is followed bya vowel, e.g. fiddler [fIdl«] (31b).(31) a. [fId®l] b. [fIdl«]PG PGCVCVCVCVCVCV||||||||fId«®lPfId«l«The conclusion at which we arrive, therefore, is that in English differentnuclei have different governing abilities. This situation is not specific toEnglish only; on the contrary, it is a cross-linguistic phenomenon (seeCyran 2003). The scale is represented schematically in (32).(32)Governing abilities of nucleiLexicallyemptynucleus PLeft branch ofsyllabicconsonants ®RLexicallypresent vowelsVFinal empty nucleus cangovernyesnonoNucleus occupied by a syllabicconsonant can governyesyesnoRealised vowel can governyesyesno