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40The frameworkLowenstamm’s (1999) idea has been taken up and developed byScheer (2004) who proposes to explain the phonotactic patterns in Slavicby means of the initial CV unit. As has already been mentioned, theinitial CV is a fully phonological object and must be sanctioned like anyother phonological unit. Since the initial CV includes an empty position,the latter should be governed to stay unexpressed just like any otherempty nucleus. This requirement imposed on the initial empty nucleuscontributes to the existence of two general groups of languages.(13) PG PG PGa.*b.c.C V 0C 1V 1C 2V 2C V 0C 1V 1C 2V 2(C V 0) C 1V 1C 2V 2| P | || | | || | | |T R VR P T VR P T VIGLic.→The representation of a consonant cluster which is typical of the group oflanguages tolerating only rising-sonority sequences at the left margin isgiven in (13a). We can see that V 2being a full vowel is able to license the IGstructure (the head C 2is directly adjacent to the licensor V 2). Consequently,V 1can remain unvocalised as it appears in the IG domain. Note that V 0as an empty nucleus requires a governor and this action can be performedby V 2. From the representation in (13a) it transpires that a full vowelcan simultaneously license and govern. The reason why the form in (13b)is not found in languages like English, German and French follows from thesimple fact that the consonants in this particular order cannot contract IG(the sonorant is followed by an empty nucleus). One could still argue thatclusters of this type, i.e. (13b), should be possible given the availability ofProper Government. Note, however, that if the nuclear position V 1wereproperly governed, the initial V 0would remain ungoverned and hence wouldhave to be phonetically realised. Now the reason why in most of the Indo-European languages the initial clusters are of the #TR type only lies in thefact that in those languages the initial CV unit is active and hence mustbe governed to remain silent. Furthermore, if the suggestion that in certainlanguages this initial site can be inactive is correct, we have a readysolution for the Polish (Slavic in general) situation. As inactive, the initialnuclear position V 0in (13c) does not require a governor. 28 In consequence,28It must be clarified here that ‘inactive’ does not imply that this initial unit is‘absent’. It is always present with the condition that in Polish and some other languagesit does not require a governor.