Verner'sLaw

Ver·ner's Law (vûrʹnərz, vĕrʹ-) n.

A law stating essentially that Proto-Germanic noninitial voiceless fricatives in voiced environments became voiced when the previous syllable was unstressed in Proto-Indo-European. For example, both the th- and the -d of English third are descended from Proto-Germanic voiceless *th, but the second was voiced by Verner's Law.

  [After Karl AdolphVerner (1846-1896), Danish philologist.]

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