3.2.2. Verner’s Law

Verner’s Law, discovered in the late 19^th c. by the Danish scholar Karl Verner, explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm’s Law.

In some words Indo-European voiceless occlusive consonants p, t, k corresponded not to the expected voiceless fricatives f, θ, h but to voiced fricatives v, ð, γ or plosives b, d, g, e.g. Greek dekas – Goth. tigus (k – g), Lat. pater – Goth. fadar (t – d).

According to Verner’s law, if an IE voiceless stop (p, t, k) was preceded by an unstressed vowel, the voiceless fricative (f, θ, h), which developed from it in accordance with Grimm’s law, became voiced (v, ð, γ), and later this voiced fricative became a voiced stop (b, d, g).

Verner’s Law can be schematically presented as follows:

V + IE stop → θ → ð → d,

where V stands for an unstressed syllable, θ is a voiceless fricative formed in accordance with Grimm’s Law, ð is a voiced fricative and d is a voiced stop.

Consider e.g. the changes of the second consonant in the word father:

PIE Early PG Late PG

*pa΄ter > *fa΄θar > *fa΄ðar > > *΄faðar

At the time when the Germanic stress was free, voiceless fricatives in the position before a stressed syllable became voiced. So, in OE fæder (Goth. fadar) in accordance with L. pater there was to be a voiceless fricative in the middle of the word, e.g. *faþar. However, the stress in Gr. pa'ter, reflecting the earlier IE stress, accounts for this seeming incongruence. In the form *fa'þar expected in accordance with the First Consonant Shift the accent was on the second syllable. Under voicing in accordance with Verner’s Law the form *fa'ðar can be reconstructed. After the stress had been shifted to the root (first) syllable, voiced consonants, which appeared in accordance with Verner’s Law, got phonologized¹.

According to Verner's Law, the consonant was changed only when it was found after an unstressed vowel. This can be seen in the reconstructed forms of OE strong verbs, which permits a conclusion that at some time the stress in the first two verbal forms fell on the root, and in the last two – on the suffix:

Class I sniþan – snaþ – snidon – sniden ‘to cut’

þēōn – þ(e)āh – þigon – þigen ‘to prosper’

Class II fleon – flēāh – flugon – flogen ‘to flee’

Class III weorþan – wearþ – wurdon – worden ‘to become’

Class V cweþan – cwæþ – cwædon – cweden ‘to say’

Class VI hebban – hof – hōfon – hafen ‘to have’

Class VII fōn (*fanhan) – feng – fengon – fangen ‘to catch’

In the conjugation system one form may have its stress on one syllable, while another form of the same verb may have it on another syllable. In this way, variants of the root arise, whose consonants are different in accordance with Verner’s law. Accordingly, alternations within the verbal system arise which have been named grammatical alternation. The original system of grammatical consonant alternation was: f/b, þ/d, h/g, hw/w, s/r.

Changes of consonants that occurred in Germanic languages due to Verner’s Law can be summarized in the following table with a particular emphasis on English and German.

Table 1.3