2015-09-06
1440
Danish scholar Carl Verner discovered another series of consonant changes in the late 19th century. By Verner’s Law the voiceless fricatives which had developed through stage 2 became voiced when they were in a voiced environment and when the stress in IE was on the syllable which preceded this consonant.
This result in the following changes:
f > v
th > d
k > g
In addition the voiceless fricative /s/ became /z/ and then in North and West Germanic developed further to /r/. This change is called Germanic Rhotacism. The effects of this change by Verner’s Law are not very visible in Mod E, because of various developments which have taken place subsequently. In Old E the variation between the original consonants and the new one can be seen in the present and singular preterite tense as compared with the preterite plural and past participle of strong verbs.
OE weor p an – preterite plural wur d on
forleo s an – past participle forlo r en (Mod E adj forlorn)
