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h
/ g / / g / Lat hostis Germ gast
Rus гость

There are several theories explaining the origin of the
consonant shift. One of the most current is the influence of the

so-called substratum (or underlayer) of a language of a different
type. There is another theory according to which the reasons for

the shift should be found in the peculiarities of the language
itself.

2.2 Verner’s Law

Even after Grimm’s explanation there were several cases
when Grimm‘s Law didn’t work or there was some change

which couldn’t be explained through Grimm’s Law. For
instance, in the position where according to Grimm’s Law the

voiceless sound [?] was expected the voiced [?] appeared (Pater
– Father). Instead of an expected voiceless stop a voiced stop

would appear in some words. These was explained by Сarl

Verner.
Verner’s Law: unstressed vowel + voiceless stop → voiceless

fricative → voiced fricative →voiced stop:

/t/ → /?/ → /?/ → /d/
Example: in the Gr word patěr the voiceless stop /t/ was

preceded by an unstressed root vowel. Under these conditions
the voiceless fricative /?/ which had developed from it in

accordance with the 1st consonant shift became a voiced
fricative /?/ and finally it developed into the voiced stop /d/, i.e.

Gr patěr → OE f?der.

According to Verner’s Law voiceless fricatives /f/, /?/, /h/ which
arose under Grimm’s Law, and also /s/ inherited from PIE,

became voiced between vowels if the preceding vowel was
unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained

voiceless. The consonant pairs involved in grammatical
alternation were f/b, ?/d, h/g, hw/w, s/r.

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