Russian is an Indo-European language of the Slavic family, spoken in Russia.

Russian is an Indo-European language of the Slavic family, spoken in

Russia. Determine from the following Russian data whether the low

front [a] and the low back [ɑ] complement each other as allophones

of the same phoneme or whether they are in contrast as allophones of

separate phonemes. If they are allophones of separate phonemes,

provide evidence for your claim. If they are in complementary

distribution, pick one allophone as the basic sound, and give the

conditioning phonetic contexts for its allophones. [pj], [tj], [dj], [zj],

and [lj] are palatalized consonants.

a. [ɑljt] 'viola'

b. [tɑk] 'so'

c. [pjɑtkə] 'heel'

d. [mɑtj] 'mother '

e. [pjatj] 'five'

f. [trᴧvɑ] 'grass'

g. [djadjə] 'uncle'

h. [mjatj] 'to crumple'

i. [vɑʃ] 'your (plural)'

j. [zjatj] 'son-in-law'