Закон вернера

В 1877 году датский лингвист Карл Вернер открыл закономерность, находящуюся, на первый взгляд, в противоречии с законом Гримма:

p - f - v - b

t - þ - ð - d

k - h -  - g

s - z - r (rhotacism)

при условии, что глухому смычному предшествует неударный гласный, он озвончался, затем переходил в смычный:

Gk patēr - OE fædar

Gk dekās - Gth tigus

Ru десяток

Ротацизм

Gth hausjan - OE hieran

Gth auso "ухо" - MnE ear, G Ohr

По закону Вернера можно судить о первоначальном ударении на ранних стадиях общегерманского периода.

Грамматическое чередование имеет место в тех случаях, когда в пределах парадигмы одного слова изменяется ударение: OE cweðen - cwædón, (sv 3) weorðan - wearð - wurdon - worden.

It will be noted that the foregoing account of the First Consonant Shift is based upon the PIE system of stops as traditionally reconstructed. However in recent years several attempts have been made to revise the classical view upon the system of PIE stops on the basis of comparative evidence.

When typological comparisons were made between the traditional PIE phonological system and the systems of living languages, it was recognized that the reconstructed system was not a natural one. It is a well-known fact that the phoneme traditionally reconstructed as [b] was so rare as to be virtually non­existent in the IE parent language. Such gap is totally unexplainable in the traditional framework. On the other hand, as pointed out by Russian scholars T.V. Gamkrelidze and Viach.Vs. Ivanov, it is very characteristic of systems to have a gap at the voiceless labial point of articulation. Thus the gap at the labial point of articulation testifies to the non-voiced character of the series under consideration.

Another deficiency of the traditional system from the typological point of view, which was pointed out by R. Jacobson and Andre Martinet, is the absence of the voiceless aspirates in the presence of the voiced aspirates.

The revision of the traditional system proposed by T.V. Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov successfully addressed the issues of typological plausibility and historical probability. According to the two scholars the plain voiced stops should be re-interpreted as voiceless glottal stops, the plain voiceless stops as voiceless aspirates. The traditional voiced aspirates remain unchanged.

According to T.V. Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov the classical PIE stop system should be revised as follows:

	I	II	III
	voiced glottalics	voiced aspirated	voiceless aspirates
labial	p'	bh	ph
dental	t'	dh	th
plain velar	k'	gh	kh
palatal velar	k^	g^h	k^h
labiovelar	k' w	gwh	kwh

The authors of the new approach consider the feature of aspiration accompanying the phonemes of series II and III phonologically irrelevant which means that there were some environments where the phonemes of these series were realized without aspiration. This may be represented by the following abridged scheme:

I	II	III
(p' )	b/bh	p/ph
t'	d/dh	t/th
k'	g/gh	k/kh
k^	g^/g^h	k^/k^h
k' w	gw /gwh	kw/kwh

In PGmc the PIE glottalics underwent deglottalization: (p ') —> (p), t' —> t, k ' —> k, etc. The PIE phonemes of series II depending on their position appear in PGmc as either voiced stops (initially) or as voiced spirants (medially): b/bh —> b/b (v), d/dh —> d/ð, g/gh —> g/ . The unaspirated allophones of series III remain unchanged in PGmc and coincide with the glottalized voiceless stops of series I. As for the aspirated voiceless stops they became spirants which either remained voiceless or underwent voicing according to Verner's law:

ph: f / b (v) th:  / ð kh: h / 

Let us compare some of the traditional reconstructions of PIE forms with the reconstructions based on the new approach:

Traditional reconstructions	* dieu- "god"	* iugom "yoke"	* pēd - pōd "foot"	* teut- "folk"	* loukos "glade"
New reconstructions	* t'ieu	* iuk'om	* phēt' - phōt' -	"theuth-	*loukhos
Non-Gmc cognates	L deus	L iugum	L pēs pēdis	Lith tautá	Lith laukas "field"
Omc cognates	OE tīw	Gth juk	OE fōt	OE Zeþeod	OE lēāh

According to T.V. Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov the PGmc stop system may be represented in the following form:

I	II	III
p	b/b(v)	f
t	d/ð	
k	g/	h
kw	gw/w	hw

Thus, contrary to the traditional view, the PGmc consonant system should be regarded as very conservative and bearing a close resemblance to its PIE ancestor.