Undergraduate Phonetics & Phonology practice exercises

You do not need to hand these in, but it will be very helpful to those of you who are
having trouble getting the hang of things!.
These exercises are from Philip Carr’s 1993 book Phonology, pp. 17-32. Note that
Carr writes [ɡ] as ‘g’.

Farsi [r], [r̥], and [ɾ]

Siamese Tai [l], [lʲ], [l̥ ], and [l̥ ʲ] (Ibid, p. 18)

Polish [r] and [r̥] (Ibid, p. 18)

Polish retroflexes and alveolo-palatals (Ibid, p. 19)
In this data, the symbols š, č, and ž, and are equal to the retroflexes ʂ, ͡tʂ d͡ʐ , respectively,
while ś, ć, and ȷ́ are the alveolo-palatals ɕ, ͡tɕ, and d͡ʑ .

State whether the appearance of retroflexes versus alveolo-palatals is predictable or not.

(E.g., are the pairs š / ś allophones of the same phoneme? Same question for the pair č / ͡tɕ;
and the pair ȷ́ / d͡ʑ.) Support your answer, and, if they are allophones of the same
phoneme, state a rule that accounts for their distribution.
Spanish (Ibid, p. 20)

Analyze the data above!

This means: 1. State what the phonemes of the language are, 2. State the allophones
of each phoneme, and 3. Give rules that account for whatever phonological alternation
there is – i.e., if you find a phoneme that has more than one allophone, state the rule that
predicts where the variant(s) occur(s).
Sound difficult? It is not difficult!! Just concentrate on sets of phonetically
similar sounds, check whether they are in parallel distribution, and if the answer is ‘yes’,
then they are phonemically distinct, and you don’t need a rule (because there could not be
one). If they are in complementary distribution, decide which variant is the underlying
representation, and give a rule describing when it gets pronounced as the alternating
allophone. (Reminder/Hint: Phonetically similar sounds include: (a) consonants with the
same place and/or manner of articulation, (b) vowels with the height and/or backness,
and (c) vowels and glides.)