The discussion offered in this article focuses on the problem of the back fricative segments in Ukrainian. An attempt is made to provide their phonological representations that account both for their distribution and phonological behavior. The analysis proposed here is coached within the framework of Government Phonology, a non-linear model, that awards considerable autonomy to phonological primitives building melodic expressions. Our concern, therefore, is to specify which elements define each of the turbulent sounds and determine the role they play within the relevant melodic structures. In accordance with the principles of the framework, it is predicted that the internal elemental content and organization of primes directly conditions the phonetic manifestation of the fricative segments. The aim of the present analysis is also to pinpoint the significance of the head-dependent distinction that obtains within melodic structures, as it often underlies, if not determines, the strength of expressions and their susceptibility to phonological processes.

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The unfolding discussion will focus on the internal representation of turbulent sounds in the phonology of German as well as pinpoint the special status of the prime defining the quality of turbulence. It will also be argued that this prime is capable of entering into special types of licensing relations, which results in specific phonetic manifestations of forms. We shall compare the effects of two processes attested in German: consonant degemination and spirantisation with a view to revealing the role of the turbulence-defining element in the two operations. Furthermore, our attention will be focused on the workings of the Obligatory Contour Principle which, as will be shown below, exerts decisive impact on prime interplay and consequently the phonetic realization of sounds and words. We shall see that segmental identity is contingent on the languagespecific interpretation of inter-element bonds. Aware of the importance of prime autonomy in determining the manifestation of sounds, let us start with a brief outline of the fundamental segment structure principles offered by the theory of Phonological Government.

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This paper addresses the problem of the syllabic consonants in the selected Slavic and Celtic languages. We shall consider this issue through the optic of Government Phonology (henceforth GP), as defined e.g. in Harris 1994, Cyran 2003 and Gussmann 2007. Within the framework of GP, the phonological structure of morphemes is constructed in terms of the licensing and governing relations between adjacent skeletal positions – the timing slots. The prosodic positions are then projected onto the syllabic constituents of nuclei (the heads of rhymes) and onsets. In such configurations, onsets are always dependent on their nuclear licensers. A specific proposal advocated in this presentation is that onset-nucleus domains are not only licensing domains but they also constitute the so-called extension domains. It will be further maintained that the phenomenon of the syllabic consonants can be analyzed in terms of segment extension occurring within such onset-nucleus extension domains. It will be demonstrated that this solution effectively accounts for the relevant linguistic facts attested to in Polish, Czech, Slovak or Serbo-Croatian. In our analysis, the distinction between the syllabic and trapped consonants will be adopted which, as will be proposed, derives from different lexical structures of either type. Apart from the available dictionary entries, we shall rely on the data provided by Scheer (2003), Dalewska-Greń (2002) and Rubach (1997). The evidence concerning the behavior of the syllabic consonants in the Slavic languages will also be compared to the Irish situation. It will be proposed that the observable differences are contingent on both structural representations and different parameter settings in the languages under discussion.