Verner's law

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Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives *β, *ð, *z, *ɣ, *ɣʷ.^[1] The law was formulated by Karl Verner, and first published in 1877.

^ In Proto-Germanic, voiced fricatives *[β ð ɣ] were allophones of their corresponding voiced plosives *[b d ɡ] when they occurred between vowels, semivowels, and liquid consonants. The situations where Verner's law applied resulted in fricatives in these very circumstances, so fricative *[b d ɡ] can be used in this context.

[1] In Proto-Germanic, voiced fricatives *[β ð ɣ] were allophones of their corresponding voiced plosives *[b d ɡ] when they occurred between vowels, semivowels, and liquid consonants. The situations where Verner's law applied resulted in fricatives in these very circumstances, so fricative *[b d ɡ] can be used in this context.

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