Rhoticity

Hi, list! Sorry I haven't posted much in a long while (nor have I been
keeping up on the readin -- shame upon me!)

I've been wondering lately just what rhoticity is. I know certain sounds are
classified as rhotic, but they don't seem to have anything in common to me,
other than that they are often represented by <r> in Latin orthography. So
here are my questions:

What *is* rhoticity?
What makes a consonant rhotic?
What characterizes a rhotic vowel?
Is there really a relation between rhoticity and retroflexion?
What are some known kinds of sound changes that occur with rhotics (i.e.
what types of sounds become rhotic, and what types of sounds come from
rhotics)?

Thank you.

--
Eric Christopherson, a.k.a. Contrarian Conlanger Rakko ^_^

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