Untitled

Three-consonant sequences77sented by means of the same single element, that is, (I). The phoneticrealisation of the element (I) either as the front vowel [i] or the glide [j]depends on the constituent membership. Thus, the former realisationappears when (I) is attached to the nucleus, while the latter one surfaceswhen linked to the onset. It follows that a syllabic consonant cannot beattached only to the nucleus as this would produce an audible change inthe realisation of the sonorant. However, the sonorants [l r n m] are pronouncedidentically whether attached to the onset or the nucleus. Secondly,syllabic consonants cannot belong to nuclei only as this would predictconstant resyllabification, as in the English pair rattle [rÏt®l] vs. rattling[rÏt®lIN] — a process which is banned from Government Phonology. Inshort, a syllabic consonant is attached to the consonantal slot and at thesame time it is spreading to a neighbouring nucleus. The representationof a syllabic consonant is illustrated in (32).(32)C VC|rV|ÏC|tV«C®lAfter this short introduction to the representation of syllabic consonantsin GP, we are ready to return to the discussion of trapped consonants inPolish. On the basis of the arguments discussed both in the previous andthe present sections, Scheer (2004) opts for the left-branching structuresto represent syllabic consonants (33a). 22(33) a. syllabic b. trappedC V C V C V C V CV|PCCRecall that syllabic consonants in Czech behave like regular vowels inthat they are able to govern as represented in (34).(34) PG(C V) C V C| | |r o zVeC|dVPCrV|PC|tV|iC|tV|P22For the opposite view see Rennison (1999b), Rowicka (2003), Blaho (2001)and Afuta (2002), who argue for the right-branching structures both for syllabicconsonants and Polish trapped sonorants. Consequently, Polish trapped consonantsare treated on a par with real syllabic consonants in other Slavic languages, e.g. Czech,Slovak and Serbo-Croatian.