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Boundary markers in phonological theory25ability of the latter is parameterised, i.e. in some systems they can licenseand/or govern.The fundamental question, however, is why in both GP and the StrictCV model it is the final empty nucleus rather than the internal one thatbehaves peculiarly. Recall that in the former model final nuclei lack thelicensor and can dispense Government-Licensing, while in the latter onethe lateral potential of the final nuclei is usually greater than that of theinternal ones. This observation brings us back to the traditional question,namely, why the right-margin of the word is special. In short, althoughboth GP and the Strict CV model are able to explain various phenomenataking place at the right edge of the word by postulating a final emptynucleus, they do not address the question why it is the final empty nucleusrather than the internal one that fails to meet the general requirementsimposed on empty nuclei. The solution could be sought in L o -wenstamm’s (1999) proposal to replace the initial word-boundarymarker with a fully phonological object, that is, # = CV unit. As will bedemonstrated in the chapters that follow, the status of the initial emptyCV unit is responsible for various dynamic and distributional phenomenain Polish and English. If we can prove that this replacement is legitimate,which is one of the major aims of this book, this solution could beextended to the right margin of the word. In short, both initial and finalboundary markers can be replaced by phonological units, i.e. empty CVand V respectively, which take an active part in phonological processes.This move would contribute to a uniform solution to the phonologicalpeculiarities arising at word-edges cross-linguistically.To conclude, this section has briefly demonstrated the distance boundarymarkers have covered in phonological theory. The reason why thediscussion has been limited to the word boundary ‘#’ is twofold. Firstly,this problem has attracted much attention in the past and hence it iswell-documented. Secondly and more importantly, it is directly relevantto our analysis in the following chapters. Thus, we have traced the wordboundary back to the origin in SPE and demonstrated the evolution ithas undergone since then. We have focused our attention on the problemof disjunctivity which inevitably involves the word boundary. The factthat this context, i.e. {_C and _#}, produces divergent effects proved oneof the serious problems for previous theories. Thus, the solution proposedin the mid-seventies, that is, the reintroduction of the coda andhence the syllable structure, fails as in certain cases both codas, i.e.,word-final and pre-consonantal, behave in different ways. On the otherhand, SPE-related models cannot refer to both codas in a uniform fashion.It is pointed out that the impasse can be resolved by a theoryin which arboreal syllable structure is replaced by the parameterised