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Consonantal interaction39Furthermore, he indicates that this move can replace the traditional boundarymarker ‘#’, which since the beginning has merely been a notationaldiacritic of a morphological nature, with a fully phonological object,that is, the initial empty CV unit (see section 3 above). The introductionof this initial site allows Lowenstamm (1999) to explain, among otherthings, the alternations in the definite article cliticisation in French andBiblical Hebrew. Very briefly, Lowenstamm (1999) points out thatthe initial CV site is always licensed in French, hence the definite articleapproaching from the left is docked onto this site (11). The CV unit originallylinked to the definite article, once deserted, waits for another cliticif there are any (11b).(11) la + tasse, ‘the cup’a.C V + C V C V| | | |l a t aC|sV|Pb.C V+ C V| |l aOn the other hand, the initial CV site in Biblical Hebrew is not alwayslicensed, as the initial consonant clusters are of two types: #TR and #RT.In order to account for the cliticisation in the language Lowestamm(1999:164) proposes the Uniformity Convention which says that ‘if theinitial CV is not licensed in all cases, then the site must remain unlicensedthroughout the language.’ If it is not licensed, the initial CV appearingbetween the definite article and the root must undergo vocalisation,and in Biblical Hebrew this is manifested in two different shapes.The more frequent one is gemination of the root initial consonant (12a).However, when the initial segment belongs to the group of consonantsresisting gemination, we witness a different solution, i.e. compensatorylengthening (12b).C|tV|aC|sV|P(12) a. ha + klabim, ‘the dogs’C|hV|a+CVC|kVb. ha + rqa©im, ‘the spices’PC|lV|aC|bV|iC|mV|P→C|hV + C V C|a kV|«C|lV|aC|bV|iC V| |m PC|hV|a+C VC|rVPC|qV|aC|©V|iC|mV|P→C|hVa+CVC|rV|«C|qV|aC|©V|iC|mV|P