Allophones and phonemes. Just need some help..don't need to answer?

Question

If someone can explain this question to me thoroughly with an examples of how I can answer this-or even the answers, I'd GREATLY appreciate it.


Question Consider the sounds [t] and [d] in the following data from Finnish. Are these separate, or allophones of the same phoneme? If you decide they are separate phonemes, explain why you have concluded this, giving example words to prove your point. If you conclude that they are allophones of the same phoneme, say which allophone represents the more basic or underlying form of the phoneme and write the phological rule that accounts for the allophone.

a). kudot ‘six’ e). madon ‘of a word’
b). kate ‘cover’ f). maton ‘of a rug’
c). katot ‘roofs’ g). ratas ‘wheel’
d). kade ‘envious’ h). radan ‘of a track’

Thanks :)

Answer 1

I cannot give examples as Finnish is not in my repertoire. The following may help.

kate means cover and kade means envious, therefore the [t]/[d] sounds have phonemic significance in these examples so you can assume that [t] and [d] are not allophones of the same phoneme in this example.

The same argument applies to madon and maton - phonemic significance therefore two separate phonemes [d] and [t].

If I remember rightly, Finnish words cannot end with a [d] sound, this would be changed to [t], in which case I would consider the [t] to be an allophone of the phoneme [d] in these circumstances; but all you examples have medial [t] and [d], so I reckon they are all examples of separate phonemes.

The above is probably confusing rather than helpful, but it got my brain working a little.

Answer 2

Examples Of Allophones