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  • ''f'', ---''þ'', ---''s'' and ---''x'', when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively ---''b'', ---''d'', ---''z'' and ---''g''.



THE PROBLEM

  • ''p'', ---''t'' and ---''k'' should have changed into Proto-Germanic (PGmc) ---''f'', ---''þ'' (dental fricative) and ---''x'' ( Velar fricative), according to Grimm's Law. Indeed, that was known to be the usual development. However, there appeared to be a large set of words in which the agreement of Latin , Greek , Sanskrit , Baltic , Slavic etc. guaranteed PIE ---''p'', ---''t'' or ---''k'', and yet the Germanic reflex was a voiced fricative (---''b'', ---''đ'' or ---''g'').


At first, irregularities did not give scholars sleepless nights as long as there were many examples of the regular outcome. Increasingly, however, it became the ambition of Linguists to formulate general and ''exceptionless'' rules of sound change that would account for all the data (or as close to the ideal as possible), not merely for a well-behaved subset of it.

  • ''t'' > PGmc ---''d'' is the word for 'father', PIE (here stands for a Laryngeal , and the macron marks Vowel Length ) > PGmc ---''fađēr'' (instead of expected ---''faþēr''). Curiously, the structurally similar family term 'brother' developed as predicted by Grimm's Law (Gmc. ---''brōþēr''). Even more curiously, we often find ''both'' ---''þ'' and ---''đ'' as reflexes of PIE ---''t'' in different forms of one and the same root, e.g. ---''werþ-'' 'turn', preterite ---''warþ'' 'he turned', but e.g. preterite plural and past participle ---''wurđ-'' (plus appropriate inflections).



THE SOLUTION

Karl Verner was the first scholar who put his finger on the factor governing the distribution of the two outcomes. He observed that the apparently unexpected voicing of voiceless fricatives occurred if they were non-word-initial and if the vowel preceding them carried no stress in PIE. The original location of stress was often retained in Greek and early Sanskrit, though in Germanic stress eventually became fixed on the initial (root) syllable of all words. The crucial difference between and was therefore one of second-syllable versus first-syllable stress (cf. Sanskrit ''pitā́'' versus ''bhrā́tā'').

  There Is A Spinoff From Verner's Law: The Rule Accounts Also For PGmc ''z'' As The Development Of PIE ''s'' In Some Words Since This ''z'' Changed To ''r'' In The "http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/encyclopedia/entry/Vrhbosna/Scandinavian_language" class="copylinks">Scandinavian Languages and in West Germanic ( German , Dutch , English , Frisian ), Verner's Law resulted in the alternation /s/ versus /r/ in some inflectional paradigms, known as Grammatischer Wechsel For example, the Old English verb ''ceosan'' 'choose' had the past plural form ''curon'' and the past participle ''(ge)coren'' < ''kius-'' ''kuz-'' < 'taste, try' We would have ''coren'' for ''chosen'' in Modern English if the consonantal shell of ''choose'' and ''chose'' had not been generalised (cf German ''kiesen'' : ''gekoren'' 'choose (archaic)') But Vernerian /r/ has not been levelled out in ''were'' < PGmc ''wēz-'', related to ''was'' Similarly, ''lose'', though it has the weak form ''lost'', also has the compound form ''forlorn'' (in German, on the other hand, the /s/ has been levelled out both in ''war'' 'was' (plur ''waren'' 'were') and ''verlieren'' 'lose' (part ''verloren'' 'lost')