-a (from Germanic *-ijaną) following a long stem. Word-finally, the distribution is reversed. For example, following the loss of final -ą, this left neuter ja-stem nouns with syllabic -i (from *-iją) after long stems but no ending (from *-ją) after short stems. The West Germanic languages such as English largely lost the alternation because of the effects of the West Germanic gemination, but the gemination itself was conditioned only by -j- and not by -ij-, so that the alternation is indirectly preserved. There is also some evidence that the alternation was preserved and adapted to the new syllable structure that resulted from the gemination. In the oldest attested languages, medial syllabic -ij- tends to be lost in the same way as in Old Norse, while nonsyllabic -j- (occurring only after -r-, which was not geminated) is preserved. Compare for example: Originally heavy syllable: Old English fēran, Old High German fuoren, Old Norse fœra < Proto-Germanic *fōrijaną Originally light syllable with gemination: Old English settan, Old High German sezzen, Old Norse setja < Proto-Germanic *satjaną Originally light syllable with no gemination: Old English werian, Old High German werien, Old Norse verja < Proto-Germanic *warjaną It has been argued that Sievers's law is actually an innovation of Germanic. The reasons for this are two distinct innovations pertaining to Sievers's law outcomes. The first is that the law works in both directions, not only yielding *-iya- following long stems, but instigating the reverse, decrementing etymological *-iya- to *-ya- following short stems. The second is an enlarged environment for the transformation. In Germanic, the syllabic shape is found not only after heavy syllables, as in Vedic, but also after some polysyllabic stems. This is quite unlike anything in Indic. The imposed conditions for the Sievers's law reversal are specifically Germanic, not Proto-Indo-European. Thus the following two verb forms show normal Germanic distributions in good order: Proto-Germanic *wurkīþi "(s)he works", *wurkijanþi "they work" become Gothic waurkeiþ , waurkjand (Gothic makes no distinction between -ij- and -j- in writing); and Proto-Germanic *satiþi "(s)he sets", *satjanþi "they set" become Gothic satjiþ, satjand. But the forms in their Proto-Indo-European shape were , and , respectively. Without Sievers's influence these would pass etymologically into Germanic as **wurkiþi, **wurkjanþi and **satīþi, **satijanþi. The regular Germanic evolution of *ur from made a light root syllable heavy, and thus *wr̥g- > *wurk- created a triggering environment for a heavy suffix, *-iji-/*-ī-, yielding