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44 The phonological nature of the beginning of the wordadvocated in Government Phonology has to be simplified to a bare minimum,i.e. to a sequence of simplex onsets and nuclei. As was mentionedin the previous chapter, the approach supporting this view on the syllablestructure is known as the Strict CV model (Lowenstamm 1996,1999, Scheer 1999a, 2004). The main mechanisms of the latter framework,boiling down to Government and Licensing, were explained andbriefly discussed in the previous chapter. However, in order to capturePolish facts, it seems necessary to introduce a few theoretical modificationsof the model.Descriptively, this chapter deals with the phenomena which allow usto understand the syllabification at the left margin of the word in Polish.We shall look at the distribution of clusters, vowel-zero alternations, prefixation,trapped and syllabic consonants, the development of soft labials,and some other phenomena in various languages, e.g. Polish, Czechand French. Moreover, it will be shown that the Strict CV model is notonly able to capture the great majority of phenomena connected withsyllabification, but also enables us to explain dialectal variation and historicaldevelopments. We begin the discussion by demonstrating thecombinatorial possibilities of the two-consonant clusters at the left marginin Polish.2. Left margin in PolishFrom the previous chapter it transpires that the recognition of the initialCV unit in phonological theory is necessary to provide the answer tothe cross-linguistic phonotactic peculiarities found at the left margin. Inthis chapter we focus our discussion on the analysis of the word-initialconsonant clusters in Polish. Bearing in mind that Polish is a languagein which both #TR and #RT clusters are possible due to the inert characterof the initial CV site, we are in a position to present the first set ofdata in (1).(1) a. sonorant + obstruent b.obstruent +obstruent[rd]est[rt]êæ[rd¡z]a‘knotgrass’‘mercury’‘rust’[kt]o[tk]aæ[kp]iæ‘who’‘weave’‘mock’