The New International Encyclopædia/Verner's Law

VERNER'S LAW. A phonetic law of the Germanic group of Indo-Germanic languages, which was enunciated in 1875 by the Danish philologist Karl Verner (q.v.). It was the result of an investigation begun to explain certain apparent irregularities in the operation of Grimm's law, and was not only important in itself, but established the principle of phonetic laws on a scientific basis, thus marking an epoch in the development of philology. The law may be stated as follows. The surd Germanic spirants, þ, f, h, hw, and s, which represent Indo-Germanic t, p, k, or q, g, ṷ and s respectively, became the sonant spirants đ, ƀ, g, gṷ, and s, when the vowel immediately preceding them did not, according to the original Indo-Germanic accent-system, bear the primary accent of the word. The sonant spirants, excepting z, thus arising, are subject to the same changes in the various Germanic dialects as those which represent Indo-Germanic dh, bh, gh, and gh. The sonant z, however, is represented in German and Icelandic by r, while the sound-groups sp, st, sk, ss, ft, fs, hs, and ht throughout the Germanic group were exempt from the operation of the law. As examples of Verner's law the following examples from Gothic and Old High German may be cited, together with the corresponding changes according to Grimm's law: Sanskrit pitár, Greek πατήρ, Gothic fadar, Old High German fatar, ‘father,’ but Sanskrit bhrā̇tar, Greek φράτηρ, Gothic brōþar, Old High German bruoder, ‘brother;’ Sanskrit saptá, Greek ἑπτά, Gothic and Old High German sibun, ‘seven,’ but Greek κλέπτειν, Gothic hlifan, ‘to steal,’ Sanskrit nápāt, Old High German nefo, ‘grandson;’ Sanskrit daśát, Greek δεκάς, Gothic tigus, Old High German -zug, ‘decade,’ but Sanskrit dáśa, Greek δέκα, Gothic taíhun, Old High German zehan, ‘ten;’ Pre-Germanic *segṷnis (cf. Sanskrit agní, ‘fire,’ vṛṣṇí, ‘ram’), Gothic siuns, ‘appearance,’ but Greek λείπειν, ‘to leave,’ Gothic leihwan, Old High German līhan, ‘to lend;’ Sanskrit máhīyas, Gothic maiza, Old High German mōro, ‘more,’ but Sanskrit násatē, ‘unite,’ Gothic ganisan, Old High German ginesan, ‘to be healed.’ Verner's law seems to have been operative after the completion of the first Germanic sound-shifting, probably between B.C. 250 and A.D. 400. The uniformity of its action has been greatly disturbed by analogy (q.v.), but enough traces of it survive to justify the important deduction that as late as the beginning of the Christian Era the Germanic languages retained the Indo-Germanic system of free accent., according to which the primary accent might fall, as in Vedic Sanskrit, Greek, Lithuanian, and Russian, on any syllable of the word, in contrast to the Germanic accent-law established long before the earliest literary records, which confines the main accent to the root-syllable. A possible analogue has been sought in the change of Indo-Germanic s to r in Latin and Umbrian, but to z in Oscan (see Italic Languages), as Latin dearum, ‘of goddesses,’ Umbrian unasiaru, ‘of urn-feasts,’ but Oscan egmazum, ‘of things.’ Consult: Verner, "Eine Ausnahme der ersten Lautverschiebung," in Kuhn, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, vol. xxiii. (Berlin, 1875); Conway, Verner's Law in Italy (London, 1887). See Grimm's Law; Philology; Phonetic Law; Teutonic Languages.