Nathan (Wayne State U.) presents a textbook introducing all the major notions of phonology, including phonemes, allophones, processes, alternations, rule ordering, historical change, and acquiring first and second languages. It explains how to solve phoneme problems, which some say is the foundation of all linguistics, but does not detail how to use any particular current theoretical tool. Answers to the problems are on the web site. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)