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60 The phonological nature of the beginning of the wordconsonants must be separated by the governed empty nucleus. 10 In theStrict CV theory advocated in this book, this fact falls out naturally assuch sequences can never hold a consonant relation (recall the discussionin Chapter One, section 5).It must be noted here that Cyran (2003), developing a slightly differentversion of the Strict CV model, arrives at similar conclusions. Inhis analysis the forms in (17c) are assigned the status of true #RT clustersand are claimed to hold a leftward Interonset relation. 11 Furthermore,the author points out in a footnote (Cyran 2003:301) that whenpreceded by the prefix pod- ‘under’, the forms in (17c) do not cause thevocalisation of the prefix-final nucleus, e.g. podrtêciowy, podrdzewia³y,podrdestowy. In spite of the fact, as Cyran (2003) further admits, thatthe examples in (17c) are all nouns and denominal prefixation differsquite radically from the verbal kind, such forms provide proof for theleftward Interonset government in #RT clusters. As mentioned above, inour analysis #RT sequences are not allowed to hold a consonantal relation.Consequently, the consonants are separated by a properly governednucleus (see again the representation in (2a) above). This situation mayseem problematic for our analysis since the prefixal vowel in this contextis predicted to surface phonetically, which is, however, not the case inthe forms given above. We shall return to this problem in section 3.6,which is devoted to trapped consonants.Finally, it is worth mentioning that the postulation of the empty nuclearposition separating the #RT sequences can be additionally confirmedby the diachronic development of the language. Cyran (2003:302)points to the fact that historically all the initial clusters of the #RT typecontained a jer separating the consonants, e.g. rüzati — r¿eæ ‘neigh’, lúgati— ³gaæ ‘lie’, rútonti — rtêæ ‘mercury’, etc. In Modern Polish all such sequencesare resolved by means of PG, the only difference being that someof the forms still indicate the vowel-zero alternation (17a), while someothers are not alternating (17b, c).In this section we have presented and analysed Polish two-consonantclusters (excluding /sC/ sequences) occurring at the left edge of the10Eugeniusz Cyran has pointed out to me that what calls for explanation here is thehomorganic nature and the rigid order of consonants in such sequences. I agree with thestatement that since [rt] sequences are separated by the governed empty nucleus, weshould not observe any constraints of this sort. To my knowledge, however, none of theprevious analyses has managed to explain this pattern. I leave this question open forfurther studies.11In Cyran’s (2003) model, contrary to Scheer’s (1999a) proposal advocatedin this work, obstruents are assigned the role of governors, while sonorants are typicalgovernees. This is the reason why Cyran (2003) represents #RT clusters as an instantiationof leftward Interonset government.