Any attempt to clarify the development of the German word Verhältnis must start from the article, in which the Deutsches Wörterbuch discusses it—rather a voluminous article, but, as will be seen presently, by no means an exhaustive one.

[The High German shift of West Germanic initial [k-], currently defined as a shift to an affricate, can be defined in the phoneme system of the dialects only as a shift to a combination of stop plus related spirant [kx-, kh-, gh-]. This definition enables us to apply an exact criterion to some of the dialects. The shift of [k-] covers a larger territory than appears under the current formulation: it covers all the Upper German (Apfel) dialects and in the west extends beyond them.]

The term ‘polarity’ was adopted for linguistic purposes by Carl Meinhof, who introduced it in his comparative account of the Hamitic languages, published in 1912. Slow at first in gaining currency, this designation has steadily been increasing in popularity; today it stands for a widely recognized principle said to be operative alike in the Hamitic and Semitic languages.