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Sonorant conspiracy145The solution offered above allows us to capture two peculiarities ofbogus clusters, namely, the rigid order of consonants, i.e. an obstruentfollowed by a sonorant, and secondly, their absence from the word-initialposition. As for the former, the reason why bogus clusters are alwaysof the obstruent plus sonorant type is explained by the fact that obstruentscannot act as syllabic consonants (at least in Germanic and Slavic languages);consequently, two-obstruent bogus clusters are not admittedin the language, e.g. *[rkPtIN]. The reason why bogus clusters are absentfrom the word-initial position is the active status of the initial emptyCV unit. Simplifying, from the three phenomena described in this chapter,only syllabic consonants can appear at the left margin. Furtherrestructuring leading to ‘dynamic’ and ‘static’ bogus clusters is not possiblein this context as it would leave out the initial site without a governor.Moreover, this solution can also explain the absence of bogus clustersfrom the word-final position. Similarly to the left margin of the word, wordfinallyonly syllabic consonants are admitted. This results naturally fromthe fact that neither lexically present vowels nor nuclei hosting the leftbranch of the syllabic consonant can be governed by the word-final emptynucleus.Finally, note that although some exceptional cases of the word-initialbogus clusters do appear in English, they are only apparently problematicas they are usually some borrowings like knish [knIS], tmesis[tmIsIs], or knesset [knEs«t]. For most speakers, such clusters are realisedwith a schwa separating the consonants in question, e.g. [k«nIS] and [k«nEs«t].Other examples of the apparent word-initial bogus clusters are reducedto a sonorant, e.g. pneumatic [nju ® mÏtIk], gnostic [ ® nstIk], knowledge [ ® nlIdZ],etc. Such clusters cannot be separated by a properly governed emptynucleus because the government has to reach the initial empty CV unit.However, when such bogus clusters are preceded by a realised vowel, whichcan satisfy the governing requirements of the initial site, the whole clusteris predicted to appear on the surface. This is borne out by the facts,e.g. apnea [Ïp ® niÉ«], agnostic [Ïg ® nstIk], acknowledge [«k ® nlIdZ].Having suggested a unified solution to apparently separate phenomenain English, we are in a position to address the problem of bogusclusters in German introduced in section 3.2. Consider again the set ofwords given in (11) above, which is abridged and repeated below in (36) forthe reader’s convenience.(36)RodlerAdlerOrdnunga. Hochlautung[roÉdlŒ][/AÉdlŒ][/OŒ8dnUN]b. NSG[roÉtlŒ][/AÉtlŒ][/OŒ8tnUN]‘tobogganist’‘eagle’‘order’10 Polish...