Media for Question re: collisions & half-dup

Question re: collisions & half-dup

I want to know the answer to several questions regarding half-duplex and collisions.

1) If you have a workstation talking half-duplex on a UTP cable to a switch (not a hub), does the workstation use a separate conductor for transmitting and receiving while in half duplex? If so, is it ever possible to have collisions while running in such a way (from what I've read it seems that under half-dup on UTP to a switch you use a separate xmit and rcv but can still have collisions).

2) If you hook half-dup from the workstation up to full-dup on the switch, then do you get discarded packets on the workstation-end, resulting in an unreliable connection? I've read that this is so.

Finally, if anyone can answer these questions can you also send me reputable articles (if possible) that back up your conclusion?

Thanks in advance,

Tom