Verner's law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *镁, *s and *x, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively *b, *膽, *z and *g. Karl (Adolph Verner 藞蕥a蓯摊藔n蓯 (born 7 March, 1846 in 脜rhus; died 5 November, 1896 in Copenhagen) was a Danish Sound change includes any processes of Language change that affect pronunciation ( phonetic change) or sound system structures ( Phonological change Proto-Germanic, or Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor ( Proto-language) of all the Germanic languages such as modern English
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The problem
When Grimm's law was discovered, a strange irregularity was spotted in its operation. Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or the Rask's-Grimm's rule) named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) voiceless stops *p, *t and *k should have changed into Proto-Germanic (PGmc) *f, *镁 (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. Latin ( lingua Lat墨na, la藞ti藧na is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Greek (el 蔚位位畏谓喂魏萎 纬位蠋蟽蟽伪 or simply el 蔚位位畏谓喂魏维 鈥 "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Sanskrit (sa 啶膏啶膏啶曕啶むぞ 啶掂ぞ啶曕 sa峁僺k峁泃膩 v膩k, for short sa 啶膏啶膏啶曕啶むぎ啷 sa峁僺k峁泃am) is a historical The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages guaranteed PIE *p, *t or *k, and yet the Germanic reflex was a voiced stop (*b, *膽 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. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields
One classic example of PIE *t > PGmc *d is the word for 'father', PIE *ph鈧倀膿r (here *h鈧 stands for a laryngeal, and the macron marks vowel length) > PGmc *fa膽膿r (instead of expected *fa镁膿r). A macron, from Greek el 渭伪魏蟻蠈v ( makr贸n) meaning "long" is a Diacritic 炉 placed over or under a Vowel which was originally In Linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a Vowel sound Curiously, the structurally similar family term *b拾reh鈧倀膿r 'brother' developed as predicted by Grimm's Law (Gmc. *br艒镁膿r). Even more curiously, we often find both *镁 and *膽 as reflexes of PIE *t in different forms of one and the same root, e. g. *wer镁- 'turn', preterite *war镁 'he turned', but e. g. preterite plural and past participle *wur膽- (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 stops 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 *ph鈧倀岣梤 and *b拾r茅h鈧倀膿r was therefore one of second-syllable versus first-syllable stress (cf. Sanskrit pit膩虂 versus bhr膩虂t膩).
The *wer镁- | *wur膽- 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 *d茅uk- | *duk麓- 'lead'.
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 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. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of Languages and include languages such as English The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages, spoken by about 500000 members of Frisian Ethnic groups who live on the southern In Historical linguistics, the German term Grammatischer Wechsel ("grammatical alternation" refers to the effects of Verner's law when viewed For example, the Old English verb ceosan 'choose' had the past plural form curon and the past participle (ge)coren < *kius- | *kuz- < *堑茅us- | *堑us- 'taste, try'. We would have corn 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. *w膿z-, related to was. Similarly, lose, though it has the weak form lost, also has the compound form forlorn (cf. Dutch "verliezen"/"verloren"); 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').
Here is a table illustrating the sound changes according to Verner. In the bottom row, for each pair, the sound on the right represents the sound changed according to Verner's Law.
| PIE | *p | *t | *k | *k史 | *s | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grimm | *筛 | *胃 | *x | *x史 | ||||||
| Verner | *筛 | *尾 | *胃 | *冒 | *x | *桑 | *x史 | *桑史 | *s | *z |
Significance
Karl Verner published his discovery in the article "Eine Ausnahme der ersten Lautverschiebung" (an exception to the first sound 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. Historische Sprachforschung (HS or HSF is a German journal of Indo-European Historical linguistics, established by Adalbert Kuhn in 1852 Year 1876 ( MDCCCLXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year Year 1875 ( MDCCCLXXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Vilhelm Ludwig Peter Thomsen ( January 25, 1842 鈥 May 12, 1927) was a Danish linguist.
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 Lautgesetze"). The Neogrammarians (also Young Grammarians, German Junggrammatiker) were a German school of linguists, originally at the University of Leipzig Sound change includes any processes of Language change that affect pronunciation ( phonetic change) or sound system structures ( Phonological change
Dating Verner's law
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.
Newer considerations regarding the dating
Some scholars today are inclined towards preferring the new theory postulating a sequence reverse to the classical one. This change, however, has far reaching implications on the shape and development of the Proto-Germanic language. The traditionally assumed order has been gradually put into question during the last few years (since ca. 1998) based on the following two main arguments:
- Several linguists have pointed out that Verner's Law may have been valid even before the first sound shift; the outcome would be the same. There is no positive evidence for the traditionally assumed reverse order.
- The discovery of strong arguments for dating Grimm's Law only to the (end) of the first century AD (cf. Common Germanic). Especially the tribesname "Kimbern" and the old name of the river Waal (Vacalus) suggest that the change from initial k to h happened only shortly before the turn of the millennium. River Waal is the main Distributary branch of River Rhine flowing to the central Netherlands for about 80 km (50 miles before joining the In the new scheme, the argument for the earliest possible dating of this change to the middle of the 1st millennium BC, that is, the change of the Greek word kannabis into Old English h忙nep and modern German hanf, is not stable anymore or at least not mandatory anymore at all.
However, the presence of /k/ in these two words may be due to Roman scribes hearing the early Germanic /x/ sound as a /k/ rather than an /h/, particularly since their own /h/ did not often occur between vowels and was at any rate already in the process of going silent. Moreover, the dating of Grimm's Law to the 1st century BC requires -- considering the abovementioned traditional order -- an enormously fast change of the late Common Germanic at the turn of the millennium: within only a few years the first three of the five dramatic changes mentioned below would have had to happen in quick succession. This would be the only way to explain that all Germanic languages show these changes although the Eastern Germanic language group had already been dissolving around the first years AD due to the replacement of Eastern Germanic. Such a rapid language change seems less plausible. Strictly speaking, it would have caused a child to be unable to understand their own grandparents.
Against the background of this, recently the thesis that Verner's Law might have been valid already before Grimm's Law, and maybe long before it, finds more and more acceptance. Accordingly this order would have to be assumed:
- Verner's Law (first possible boundary for Indo-European/Germanic)
- Appearance of initial stress (second possible boundary for Indo-European/Germanic)
- Grimm's Law/First Sound Shift in the late 1st century BC (*doesn't* mark the formation of Germanic accordingly)
- Weakening of unstressed syllables (in German only in the 10th century AD) soon thereafter if not simultaneously
- Decline/Reformation of the flexion systems
In German the steps 4 and 5 indicate the transition from Old High German to Middle High German. There is however a phonologic argument against this dating: The traditional order makes it possible to narrow down the effect of Verner's Law to the voiceless fricatives. If on the other hand one wants to apply the First Sound Shift after Verner's Law one has to suppose that Verner's Law applies to two completely different groups of sounds, namely the voiceless plosives *p, *t, and *k as well as the fricative s.
Here is a table with an alternate view of Verner's Law, occurring before the shift of Grimm's Law. The *s column is omitted because of the aforementioned dilemma.
| PrePG | *p拾 | *t拾 | *k拾 | *k史拾 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verner | *p拾 | *b时 | *t拾 | *d时 | *k拾 | *伞时 | *k史拾 | *伞史时 |
| Grimm | *筛 | *尾 | *胃 | *冒 | *x | *桑 | *x史 | *桑史 |
See also
Further reference
- Ramat, Paolo, Einf眉hrung in das Germanische (Linguistische Arbeiten 95) (T眉bingen, 1981)
- Koivulehto, Jorma / Vennemann, Theo, Der finnische Stufenwechsel und das Vernersche Gesetz. In Historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift was a phonological development ( Sound change) which took place Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or the Rask's-Grimm's rule) named for Jacob Grimm, is a set of statements describing Year 1981 ( MCMLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Theo Vennemann genannt Nierfeld ( May 27, 1937 -) is a German linguist known best for his work on Historical linguistics, especially - in: Beitr盲ge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 118, p. 163-182 (esp. 170-174) (1996)
External links
- A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical IE Linguistics Ch.11 "An exception to the first sound shift" by Winfred P. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) Lehmann - From the Linguistics Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin
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