- ''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'').
- ''werþ-'' | ---''wurđ-'' contrast is likewise explained as due to stress on the root versus stress on the inflectional suffix (leaving the first syllable unstressed). There are also other Vernerian alternations such as illustrated by Modern German ''ziehen'' | ''(ge)zogen'' 'draw' < PGmc. ---''tiux-'' | ---''tug-'' < PIE | 'lead'.
- ''z'' as the development of PIE ---''s'' in some words. Since this ---''z'' changed to ---''r'' in the 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').
It is worth noting that the Verner's Law comes chronologically before the Germanic shift of stress to the initial syllable (because the voicing is conditioned by the old location of stress). The stress shift erased the conditioning environment and made the Vernerian variation between voiceless fricatives and their voiced alternants look mysteriously haphazard. Until recently it was assumed that Verner's law was productive after Grimm's Law. Now it has been pointed out that even if the sequence was reverse the end result could have been just the same given certain conditions. Scholars today are inclined towards preferring the new theory postulating a sequence reverse to the classical one.
Significance
Karl Verner published his discovery in the article "Eine Ausnahme der ersten Lautverschiebung" (an exception to the first consonant shift) in Kuhns Zeitschrift in 1876 , but he had presented his theory already on 1 May, 1875 in a comprehensive personal letter to his friend and mentor, Vilhelm Thomsen .
It was received with great enthusiasm by the young generation of comparative philologists, the so-called ''Junggrammatiker'', because it was an important argument in favour of the Neogrammarian dogma that the Sound Laws were without exceptions ("die Ausnahmslosigkeit der Lautgsetze").
See also
Further reference
# Ramat, Paolo , '' Einführung In Das Germanische '' (Linguistische Arbeiten 95) (Tübingen, 1981 )
#, p. 163-182 (esp. 170-174) ( 1996 )
External links
- A good exposition is at http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/iedocctr/ie-docs/lehmann/reader/Chapter11.html
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