Karl Adolf Verner (* 7. March 1846 in Århus; † 5. November 1896 in Copenhagen) was a Danishlinguist. He is remembered especially for Verner's law, which he discovered in 1875. 1846 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... The cityhall of à rhus. ... 1896 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... City nickname: none Location in Denmark Area - Total - Water 526 km² xxx km² xx% Population - City (2004) - Metropolitan - Density 502,204 1,116,979 954/km2 [including water] xxx/km2 [land only] Time zone Eastern: UTC+1 Latitude Longitude 55°43 N 12°34 E Copenhagen (Danish: København) is... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... Verners law, stated by Karl Verner in 1875, describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s and *x, when immediately following an unstressed syllable in the same word, underwent voicing and became respectively *b, *d, *z and *g. ... 1875 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...
KarlVerner noted a seeming "problem" with the operation of Grimm's Law in the development of the Germanic languages, and postulated a solution, in reality merely a supplement to Grimm's Law that provides an important exception to the sound changes.
Through deductive reasoning, Verner showed that the Indo-European placement of stress was the deciding factor in this development: if the immediately preceding syllable did not bear primary stress, then the alternate forms (the voiced versions) were produced.
All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic, united by their having been subjected to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law.
Verner's law describes a regular shift in stress that took place in words in the Germanic languages after the consonant shift postulated by Grimm.
Verner observed that this was true when the accent fell on the root syllable, but when the accent fell on another syllable, ancient Indo-European p, t, and k became Germanic b, d, and g.
Verner's law states that with respect to the Germanic languages, the medial and final fricatives were voiced if they came after an unaccented syllable in the Indo-European parent language.