Editing Verner's law (section)

== Dating the change described by Verner's law ==
The change in pronunciation described by Verner's Law must have occurred before the shift of stress to the first syllable: the voicing of the new consonant in Proto-Germanic is conditioned by which syllable is stressed in Proto-Indo-European, yet this syllabic stress has disappeared in Proto-Germanic, so the change in the consonant must have occurred at a time when the syllabic stress in earlier Proto-Germanic still conformed to the Indo-European pattern. However, the syllabic stress shift erased the conditioning environment, and made the variation between voiceless fricatives and their voiced alternants look mysteriously haphazard.

=== Which applied first: Grimm's law or Verner's law? ===
Until recently it was assumed that Verner's law was productive after Grimm's Law, and this remains the standard account: [[R. D. Fulk]]'s 2018 ''Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages'', for example, finds that 'Grimm's law should be assumed to antecede Verner's law'.{{sfn|Fulk|2018|p=111}}

But it has been pointed out that, even if the sequence is reversed, the result can be just the same given certain conditions, and the thesis that Verner's Law might have been valid before Grimm's Law—maybe long before it—has been finding more and more acceptance.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Venneman |first1=Theo |title=Hochgermanisch und Niedergermanisch. Die Verzweigungstheorie der germanisch-deutschen Lautverschiebungen |journal=Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur |date=1984 |volume=106 |pages=1-45}}</ref>{{rp|page=21}}<ref>Kortlandt 1988:5–6, Euler and Badenheuer 2009:54-55 and 61-64.</ref> Accordingly, this order now would have to be assumed:

# Verner's law (possible boundary for Indo-European/Germanic)
# Grimm's law/First Sound Shift (does '''not''' mark the formation of Germanic accordingly)
# Appearance of initial stress (third possible boundary for Indo-European/Germanic)

This chronological reordering would have far-reaching implications for the shape and development of the Proto-Germanic language. If Verner's law operated before Grimm's law, one would expect the voicing of Proto-Indo-European ''{{PIE|*p}}'', ''{{PIE|*t}}'', ''{{PIE|*k}}'', and {{lang|gem-x-proto|*kʷ}}  to produce ''{{PIE|*b}}'', ''{{PIE|*d}}'', ''{{PIE|*g}}'', and {{lang|gem-x-proto|*gʷ}}, which would have been identical with the existing Proto-Indo-European voiced stops. Yet it is clear that consonants affected by Verner's law merged with the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirate stops, not of the plain voiced stops. The usual proposed explanation for this is to postulate aspiration in the voiceless stops of the dialect of Indo-European that gave rise to Proto-Germanic.

Here is a table describing the sequence of changes in this alternative ordering:
{| class="wikitable"
|- style="text-align: center;"
! PIE
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*p}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*t}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*k}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*kʷ}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*s}}
|- style="text-align: center;"
! PrePG
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*pʰ}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*tʰ}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*kʰ}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*kʷʰ}}
| colspan="2" |{{IPA|*s}}
|- style="text-align: center;"
! Verner
|{{IPA|*pʰ}}
!{{IPA|*bʱ}}
|{{IPA|*tʰ}}
!{{IPA|*dʱ}}
|{{IPA|*kʰ}}
!{{IPA|*ɡʱ}}
|{{IPA|*kʷʰ}}
!{{IPA|*ɡʷʱ}}
| rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" |{{IPA|*s}}
! rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:top;" |{{IPA|*z}}
|- style="text-align: center;"
! Grimm
|{{IPA|*ɸ}}
!{{IPA|*β}}
|{{IPA|*θ}}
!{{IPA|*ð}}
|{{IPA|*x}}
!{{IPA|*ɣ}}
|{{IPA|*xʷ}}
!{{IPA|*ɣʷ}}
|}
(This can however be bypassed in the [[glottalic theory]] framework, where the voiced aspirate stops are replaced with plain voiced stops, and plain voiced stops with glottalized stops.)

Meanwhile, Noske<ref>{{cite book |last1=Noske |first1=Roland |editor1-last=Botma |editor1-first=Bert |editor2-last=Noske |editor2-first=Roland |title=Phonological Explorations. Empirical, Theoretical and Diachronic Issues |date=2012 |publisher=De Gruyter |location=Berlin |pages=63-86 |chapter=The Grimm–Verner Chain Shift and Contrast Preservation Theory}}</ref> argued that Grimm's Law and Verner's Law must have been part of a single bifurcating chain shift.