This book is the most complete phonology of contemporary Polish ever published. It is topic-oriented and presents the fundamental characteristics and problems associated with each topic, among them syllable structure, vowel-zero alternations, palatalizations, and other vowel and consonant changes. Professor Gussmann re-examines assumptions about phonological contrasts and alternations, and raises and addresses central questions in morphophonology. He takes morphophonology to be systematically separate from phonology. Palatalizations, he shows, are crucial to Polish, as both phonological and morphophonological phenomena: their detailed description leads him to a systematic presentation of vocalic alternations.
The book develops a Government Phonology account of Polish, but is primarily a description of the language with the model subordinated to the organization of data. All the many examples used to illustrate the presentation are transcribed in standard IPA, and translated. This important book will interest all scholars and advanced students of Polish and Slavic phonology.

This textbook is a clear and concise introduction to phonology that assumes no prior knowledge and provides an overall view of the field which can be covered within a year. It also does not confine itself to any specific theoretical approach. Each chapter focuses on a particular set of theoretical issues including segments, syllables, feet, and phonological processing. Gussmann explores these areas using data drawn from a variety of languages including English, Icelandic, Russian, Irish, Finnish, Turkish, and others.