Consonant Alternations in Germanic Languages due to Verner’s Law

Indo-European	Germanic	English	German
p	f / ѣ	f / v	f / b
t	þ / đ	th /d, th	d / t
k	h / g	h / g	h / g
ku	hw, h / gw, g, w	w, h / g, w	w, h / g, w
s	s / z	s / r	s / r

Eventually, this system underwent some changes in several Germanic languages, including Old English.

More examples of Verner’s Law can be found in the following table:

Table 1.4

Verner’s Law

Indo-European	Germanic
p, t, k, s	b, ð/d, g, z/r
Gr hepta Gr pater Gr dekas Snsk ayas	Goth sibun ‘seven’ O Sc faðir, OE fæder Goth tigus ‘ten, a dozen’ Goth aiz, OHG ēr

Note that some modern English words have retained traces of Verner’s Law, e.g. seethe — sodden; death —dead; raise—rear; was—were.

3.2.2.1. Rhotacism

Besides the voiceless fricative consonants resulting from the consonant shift, one more voiceless fricative is affected by Verner’s Law, i.e. the consonant s. If the preceding vowel is unstressed, s in Germanic languages becomes voiced, i.e. changes into z in the intervocal position. Eventually this z becomes r in Western Germanic and Northern Germanic languages (but not in Gothic). This latter change z > r is termed rhotacism (the term is derived from the name of the Greek letter ρ (rho). This is clearly shown by comparing Goth hausjan ‘hear’ and OE hīeran, G hōren; Goth laisjan ‘teach’ and OE læran, G lehren.

Basing on the absence of rhotacism in Gothic, archetypal forms of Gothic words not found in any written records can be restored for scholarly research, e.g. G. lernen, OE lerian, Goth. *laisian.

3.3. Changes of Vowels

Strict differentiation of long and short vowels is commonly regarded as an important characteristic of the Germanic group. The contrast of short and long vowels is supported by the different directions of their changes. While long vowels generally tended to become closer and to diphthongise, short vowels, on the contrary, often changed into morе open sounds.

1. IE short o and a changed into short a in Germanic. E.g.:

IE Germ IE Germ

R. яблоко G. Apfel L. octō Goth. ahtau

L. noctem Goth. Nahts Gr. Oktō G. Acht

R. ночь G. Nacht R. восемь

2. The merging of long vowels proceeded in the opposite direction: IE long ō and ā appear as long ō in Germanic languages. E.g.:

IE Germ IE Germ

L. frater Goth. Brōþar L. flōs ‘flower’ OE blōma

Gr. phrātōr OE broþor

Thus, as a result of these changes, there was neither a short o or a long ā in Germanic languages. Later on these sounds appeared from different sources.