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Grimm's law

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Grimm's law , also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift or Rask's rule , is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first discovered by Rasmus Rask but systematically put forward by Jacob Grimm . It establishes a set of regular correspondences between early Germanic stops and fricatives and stop consonants of certain other Indo-European languages .

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59-424: Grimm's law was the first discovered systematic sound change, creating historical phonology as a historical linguistics discipline. Friedrich von Schlegel first noted the correspondence between Latin p and Germanic f in 1806. In 1818, Rasmus Rask extended the correspondences to other Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit and Greek, and to the full range of consonants involved. In 1822, Jacob Grimm put forth

118-629: A common ancestor and synchronic variation . Dialectologists are concerned with grammatical features that correspond to regional areas. Thus, they are usually dealing with populations living in specific locales for generations without moving, but also with immigrant groups bringing their languages to new settlements. Immigrant groups often bring their linguistic practices to new settlements, leading to distinct linguistic varieties within those communities. Dialectologists analyze these immigrant dialects to understand how languages develop and diversify in response to migration and cultural interactions. Phonology

177-415: A given time, usually the present, but a synchronic analysis of a historical language form is also possible. It may be distinguished from diachronic, which regards a phenomenon in terms of developments through time. Diachronic analysis is the main concern of historical linguistics. However, most other branches of linguistics are concerned with some form of synchronic analysis. The study of language change offers

236-413: A hybrid known as phono-semantic matching . In languages with a long and detailed history, etymology makes use of philology , the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By analysis of related languages by

295-569: A phonotactic restriction known as the Germanic spirant law . This rule remained productive throughout the Proto-Germanic period. The cluster *tt became *ss (as in many Indo-European daughter languages), but this was often restored analogically to *st later on. Examples with preceding *s: Examples with following *t: The Germanic "sound laws", combined with regular changes reconstructed for other Indo-European languages, allow one to define

354-421: A plausible potential change from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Once the sounds described by Grimm's law had changed, only one type of voiced consonant was left, with no distinction between voiced stops and voiced fricatives. They eventually became stops at the start of a word (for the most part), as well as after a nasal consonant, but fricatives elsewhere. Whether they were plosives or fricatives at first

413-480: A separate phenomenon, and it already occurred in Proto-Indo-European since other Indo-European languages show similar results. It seems to have occurred only when a dental plosive was followed by a suffix beginning with /t/ ; geminated /tt/ remained if it occurred within a single morpheme. Evidence from Germanic and other Indo-European languages such as Latin confirms that: Latin edere "to eat" shows

472-450: A stop. For most weak verbs, that was not an issue because they had stems formed with various vowel suffixes. One such suffix was * -(e)ye- , which formed denominatives and causatives. Its form in the past participle retained this suffix as an intervening vowel and so did not cause any special changes to the consonants: PIE * -(e)y-tos > PG * -idaz . However, some of the class 1 weak verbs had been inherited as j-presents and had

531-635: A tool for linguistic reconstruction . Scholars were concerned chiefly with establishing language families and reconstructing unrecorded proto-languages , using the comparative method and internal reconstruction . The focus was initially on the well-known Indo-European languages , many of which had long written histories; scholars also studied the Uralic languages , another Eurasian language-family for which less early written material exists. Since then, there has been significant comparative linguistic work expanding outside of European languages as well, such as on

590-476: A valuable insight into the state of linguistic representation, and because all synchronic forms are the result of historically evolving diachronic changes, the ability to explain linguistic constructions necessitates a focus on diachronic processes. Initially, all of modern linguistics was historical in orientation. Even the study of modern dialects involved looking at their origins. Ferdinand de Saussure 's distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics

649-428: Is aspirated , but the p in spin is not. In English these two sounds are used in complementary distribution and are not used to differentiate words so they are considered allophones of the same phoneme . In some other languages like Thai and Quechua , the same difference of aspiration or non-aspiration differentiates words and so the two sounds, or phones , are considered to be distinct phonemes. In addition to

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708-437: Is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to establish their historical relatedness. Languages may be related by convergence through borrowing or by genetic descent, thus languages can change and are also able to cross-relate. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin among languages. Comparative linguists construct language families , reconstruct proto-languages , and analyze

767-401: Is a sub-field of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language or set of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages. Phonology studies when sounds are or are not treated as distinct within a language. For example, the p in pin

826-512: Is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian . Dialectology is the scientific study of linguistic dialect , the varieties of a language that are characteristic of particular groups, based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. This is in contrast to variations based on social factors, which are studied in sociolinguistics , or variations based on time, which are studied in historical linguistics. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from

885-532: Is fundamental to the present day organization of the discipline. Primacy is accorded to synchronic linguistics, and diachronic linguistics is defined as the study of successive synchronic stages. Saussure's clear demarcation, however, has had both defenders and critics. In practice, a purely-synchronic linguistics is not possible for any period before the invention of the gramophone , as written records always lag behind speech in reflecting linguistic developments. Written records are difficult to date accurately before

944-441: Is linguistic change in progress. Synchronic and diachronic approaches can reach quite different conclusions. For example, a Germanic strong verb (e.g. English sing ↔ sang ↔ sung ) is irregular when it is viewed synchronically: the native speaker's brain processes them as learned forms, but the derived forms of regular verbs are processed quite differently, by the application of productive rules (for example, adding -ed to

1003-496: Is the study of patterns of word-formation within a language. It attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of speakers. In the context of historical linguistics, formal means of expression change over time. Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology . Along with clitics , words are generally accepted to be the smallest units of syntax ; however, it is clear in most languages that words may be related to one another by rules. These rules are understood by

1062-456: Is therefore not clear. The voiced aspirated stops may have first become voiced fricatives, before becoming stops under certain conditions. But they may also have become stops at first, then become fricatives in most positions later. Around the same time as the Grimm's law sounds shifted, another change occurred known as Verner's law . Verner's law caused the voiceless fricatives that resulted from

1121-423: Is unrelated. The vowel idiosyncrasies in those verbs are mostly a result of the separate and much-later development of Rückumlaut . Only when an /n/ disappeared with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel did the spirant law itself result in vowel alternation. Hence, Middle High German denken ‘think’ and decken ‘cover’ had the preterites dāhte and dahte , respectively. Another result of

1180-710: The Austronesian languages and on various families of Native American languages , among many others. Comparative linguistics became only a part of a more broadly-conceived discipline of historical linguistics. For the Indo-European languages, comparative study is now a highly specialized field. Some scholars have undertaken studies attempting to establish super-families, linking, for example, Indo-European, Uralic, and other families into Nostratic . These attempts have not met with wide acceptance. The information necessary to establish relatedness becomes less available as

1239-400: The comparative method and the method of internal reconstruction . Less-standard techniques, such as mass lexical comparison , are used by some linguists to overcome the limitations of the comparative method, but most linguists regard them as unreliable. The findings of historical linguistics are often used as a basis for hypotheses about the groupings and movements of peoples, particularly in

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1298-482: The comparative method , linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In that way, word roots that can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family have been found. Although originating in the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done in language families for which little or no early documentation

1357-475: The origin of language ) studies Lamarckian acquired characteristics of languages. This perspective explores how languages adapt and change over time in response to cultural, societal, and environmental factors. Language evolution within the framework of historical linguistics is akin to Lamarckism in the sense that linguistic traits acquired during an individual's lifetime can potentially influence subsequent generations of speakers. Historical linguists often use

1416-463: The wh -cluster , though the spellings reflect the history more; see English interrogative words: Etymology for details. Historical linguistics Historical linguistics , also known as diachronic linguistics , is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical linguistics involves several key areas of study, including

1475-465: The Germanic spirant law continued to operate for some time and to have acted as a surface filter , which eliminated any sequences of a stop followed by t as they arose by borrowing or native word formation. A notable example is the partial loanword * skriftiz (compare Dutch schrift ) borrowed from Latin scrīptum "script". The change affecting dental consonants is generally assumed to have been

1534-573: The Grimm's law changes to become voiced under certain conditions, creating apparent exceptions to the rule. For example: Here, the same sound *t appears as *þ /θ/ in one word (following Grimm's law), but as *d /ð/ in another (apparently violating Grimm's law). See the Verner's law article for a more detailed explanation of this discrepancy. The early Germanic *gw that had arisen from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰ (and from *kʷ through Verner's law) further changed with various sorts: Perhaps

1593-710: The ancestor of Germanic languages . The law affects the various series of stops in Proto-Indo-European that underwent Grimm's Law and Verner's Law . If the stops were immediately followed by t or s , they changed to voiceless fricatives (spirants): Under normal conditions, any voiced stop would likely have been devoiced before /t/ and /s/ during Proto-Indo-European times, and so all three Indo-European series of stop consonants (aspirated, voiced and voiceless) had already merged before those two consonants. Therefore, for example, /bʰt/ , /bt/ and /ɡʰt/ , /ɡt/ had already become /pt/ and /kt/ in some of

1652-484: The basic form of a verb as in walk → walked ). That is an insight of psycholinguistics , which is relevant also for language didactics , both of which are synchronic disciplines. However, a diachronic analysis shows that the strong verb is the remnant of a fully regular system of internal vowel changes, in this case the Indo-European ablaut ; historical linguistics seldom uses the category " irregular verb ". The principal tools of research in diachronic linguistics are

1711-412: The context of Germanic. The exact details of the shift are unknown, and it may have progressed in a variety of ways before arriving at the final situation. The three stages listed above show the progression of a "pull chain", in which each change leaves a "gap" in the phonological system that "pulls" other phonemes into it to fill the gap. Alternatively, the shift may have occurred as a “push chain”, where

1770-441: The development of the modern title page . Often, dating must rely on contextual historical evidence such as inscriptions, or modern technology, such as carbon dating , can be used to ascertain dates of varying accuracy. Also, the work of sociolinguists on linguistic variation has shown synchronic states are not uniform: the speech habits of older and younger speakers differ in ways that point to language change. Synchronic variation

1829-468: The ending altogether by substituting * -ī . However, the form is preserved in the older preterite-presents, even in the older West Germanic languages: compare Gothic magan , Old English magan , Old Norse mega ‘may’ (infinitive) and þu maht , þū meaht , þú mátt ‘thou mayest’ (2nd pers. sg.), and -aht- regularly becomes -átt- in Old Norse. Since the ending was * -ta in late Proto-Indo-European,

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1888-592: The expected sound correspondences between different branches of the family. For example, Germanic (word-initial) *b- corresponds regularly to Latin *f- , Greek pʰ- , Sanskrit bʰ- , Slavic , Baltic or Celtic b- , etc., while Germanic *f- corresponds to Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Slavic and Baltic p- and to zero (no initial consonant) in Celtic. The former set goes back to PIE * bʰ- (faithfully reflected in Sanskrit and modified in various ways elsewhere), and

1947-431: The genitive noun form rēgis and its nominative rēx "king". The specifically-Germanic part of the change in which the first plosive became a fricative but not the /t/ following it seems to have been just an exception to Grimm's law. Under the normal operation of the law, voiceless plosives become fricatives in Germanic. However, if two plosives stood next to each other, the first became a fricative by Grimm's law, if it

2006-409: The historical changes that have resulted in the documented languages' divergences. Etymology studies the history of words : when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Words may enter a language in several ways, including being borrowed as loanwords from another language, being derived by combining pre-existing elements in the language, by

2065-399: The history of speech communities, and study the origins and meanings of words ( etymology ). Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown out of the earlier discipline of philology , the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. Initially, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics , primarily as

2124-502: The irregular participle form to the entire past. The following table contains only forms that have survived into the modern languages. Medieval languages had many more. (The forms in brackets no longer show the effect because of levelling or, in the case of German, the High German consonant shift .) Although that looks similar to grammatischer Wechsel , which causes a superficially-similar consonant alternation in strong verbs , it

2183-443: The labials ( p, b, bʰ, f ) and their equivalent dentals ( t, d, dʰ, þ ), velars ( k, g, gʰ, h ) and rounded velars ( kʷ, gʷ, gʷʰ, hʷ ). The first phase left the phoneme repertoire of the language without voiceless stops, the second phase filled this gap, but created a new one, and so on until the chain had run its course. When two obstruents occurred in a pair, the first was changed according to Grimm's law, if possible, while

2242-462: The late Proto-Indo-European dialects. Likewise, /bʰs/ , /bs/ and /ɡʰs/ , /ɡs/ had become /ps/ and /ks/ . Compare, for example, Latin scrībere "to write" and legere "to gather, read" with their past participles scrīptus and lēctus (likely also with a type of compensatory lengthening ). Cases before /s/ are also numerous, as can be noticed by comparing Latin scrībere and its perfect scrīpsī , or pingere "to paint" and pīnxī and also

2301-511: The latter set to PIE *p- (shifted in Germanic, lost in Celtic, but preserved in the other groups mentioned here). One of the more conspicuous present surface correspondences is the English digraph wh and the corresponding Latin and Romance digraph qu , notably found in interrogative words ( wh -words ) such as the five Ws . These both come from kʷ . The present pronunciations have further changed, like many English varieties reducing

2360-522: The minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English, and topics such as syllable structure, stress , accent , and intonation . Principles of phonology have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages , but the phonological units do not consist of sounds. The principles of phonological analysis can be applied independently of modality because they are designed to serve as general analytical tools, not language-specific ones. Morphology

2419-534: The order 3, 2, 1) can be abstractly represented as: Here each sound moves one position to the right to take on its new sound value. Within Proto-Germanic, the sounds denoted by ⟨b⟩ , ⟨d⟩ , ⟨g⟩ and ⟨gw⟩ were stops in some environments and fricatives in others, so bʰ → b indicates bʰ → b/β , and likewise for the others. The voiceless fricatives are customarily spelled ⟨f⟩ , ⟨þ⟩ , ⟨h⟩ and ⟨hw⟩ in

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2478-443: The past participle ēsus "eaten" from earlier * ed-tus . However, a geminate /tt/ is preserved in both Gothic and Latin atta "father". In some instances, /ss/ was partially restored to /st/ by analogy with other words, particularly in verbs. For example, the second-person singular past form of * sitjanan "to sit" would have become * sód-ta → * sótsta → * sass (compare the related Old English word sess "seat"). However, it

2537-472: The prehistoric period. In practice, however, it is often unclear how to integrate the linguistic evidence with the archaeological or genetic evidence. For example, there are numerous theories concerning the homeland and early movements of the Proto-Indo-Europeans , each with its own interpretation of the archaeological record. Comparative linguistics , originally comparative philology ,

2596-581: The reconstruction of ancestral languages, the classification of languages into families , ( comparative linguistics ) and the analysis of the cultural and social influences on language development. This field is grounded in the Uniformitarian Principle , which posits that the processes of language change observed today were also at work in the past, unless there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. Historical linguists aim to describe and explain changes in individual languages, explore

2655-460: The rule in his book Deutsche Grammatik and extended it to include standard German. He noticed that many words had consonants different from what his law predicted. These exceptions defied linguists for several decades, until Danish linguist Karl Verner explained them in Verner's law . Grimm's law consists of three parts, forming consecutive phases in the sense of a chain shift . The phases are usually constructed as follows: This chain shift (in

2714-511: The second phase did not actually exist as such, or was not actually devoicing but was losing some other articulatory feature like glottalization or ejectiveness . This alternative sequence also accounts for Verner's law phonetics (see below), which are easier to explain within the glottalic theory framework when Grimm's law is formulated in this manner. Additionally, aspirated stops are known to have changed to fricatives when transiting between Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Italic , so representing

2773-406: The second was not. If either of the two was voiceless, the whole cluster was devoiced, and the first obstruent also lost its labialisation, if it was present. Most examples of this occurred with obstruents preceded by *s (resulting in *sp, *st, *sk, *skʷ), or obstruents followed by *t (giving *ft, *ss, *ht, *ht) or *s (giving *fs, *ss, *hs, *hs). The latter change was frequent in suffixes, and became

2832-527: The sounds changed in reverse order, with each change "pushing" the next forward to avoid merging the phonemes. The steps could also have occurred somewhat differently. Another possible sequence of events could have been: This sequence would lead to the same result. This variety of Grimm's law is often suggested in the context of Proto-Indo-European glottalic theory , which is followed by a minority of linguists. This theoretical framework assumes that PIE "voiced stops" were actually voiceless to begin with, so that

2891-739: The speaker, and reflect specific patterns in how word formation interacts with speech. In the context of historical linguistics, the means of expression change over time. Syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages . Syntax directly concerns the rules and principles that govern sentence structure in individual languages. Researchers attempt to describe languages in terms of these rules. Many historical linguistics attempt to compare changes in sentence between related languages, or find universal grammar rules that natural languages follow regardless of when and where they are spoken. In terms of evolutionary theory, historical linguistics (as opposed to research into

2950-539: The spirant law, though far less obvious, was in the second-person singular past tense form of strong verbs, which ended with * -t , without a vowel between it and the verb stem. That caused the final consonant of the stem to undergo the change. The irregular form is preserved directly only in Gothic, however. In Old Norse, the original consonant had been restored by analogy, and the West Germanic languages had replaced

3009-422: The suffix only in the present tense forms but not in the past tense. Some archaic athematic verbs such as "will", notably the preterite-present verbs , also lacked a vowel suffix. In those verbs, therefore, the participle suffix came into direct contact with the preceding consonant, triggering the spirant law in those verbs. The form of the past participle was also extended to form the weak past tense, which spread

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3068-471: The suffix should have undergone Grimm's Law and become * -þ in Germanic whenever the verb stem did not end in an obstruent. However, it remained as * -t when the stem ended in an obstruct because of the spirant law. However, there is no trace of an ending * -þ in the Germanic languages (except for the rare and isolated Old English form arþ ), and * -t is found instead. It is, therefore, believed that since verbs ending in obstruents were so common in Germanic,

3127-519: The terms conservative and innovative to describe the extent of change within a language variety relative to that of comparable varieties. Conservative languages change less over time when compared to innovative languages. Germanic spirant law The Germanic spirant law , or Primärberührung , is a specific historical instance in linguistics of dissimilation that occurred as part of an exception of Grimm's law in Proto-Germanic ,

3186-415: The time increases. The time-depth of linguistic methods is limited due to chance word resemblances and variations between language groups, but a limit of around 10,000 years is often assumed. Several methods are used to date proto-languages, but the process is generally difficult and its results are inherently approximate. In linguistics, a synchronic analysis is one that views linguistic phenomena only at

3245-401: The usual reflex was *b (as suggested by the connection of bid < *bidjaną and Old Irish guidid ), but *w appears in certain cases (possibly through dissimilation when another labial consonant followed?) like warm and wife (provided that the proposed explanations are correct). Proto-Germanic *hw voiced by Verner's law fell together with this sound and developed identically, compare

3304-510: The words for 'she-wolf': from Middle High German wülbe and Old Norse ylgr , one can reconstruct Proto-Germanic nominative singular *wulbī , genitive singular *wulgijōz , from earlier *wulgwī , *wulgwijōz . Further changes following Grimm's law, as well as sound changes in other Indo-European languages, can occasionally obscure the law's effects. The most illustrative examples are used here. This process appears strikingly regular. Each phase involves one single change which applies equally to

3363-561: Was not so already, but the second remained a plosive. That exception applied not only to series of two plosives but also to series of /s/ and a plosive, and the plosive was then preserved. In some cases, that gave alternations between two related forms, one with s-mobile and the other without, such as English steer , Icelandic stjór , Dutch stier (← * steuraz ← PIE * steuros with preserved /t/ ) vs. Limburgish deur, duur , Old Norse þjórr (← * þeuraz ← PIE * tauros with regularly shifted /t/ ). Unlike Grimm's law in general, however,

3422-491: Was preserved into the separate history of Old English since it affected the outcome of Anglo-Frisian brightening , which was conditioned by nasality. It is still present in Elfdalian today. The effect has an important consequence for some of the oldest weak verbs . As the weak past participle was formed with the Proto-Indo-European suffix * -tos , the assimilation could have occurred in all verbs with stems that ended with

3481-513: Was restored to * sast , based on parallel forms in other verbs such as * stalt (from * stelanan "to steal") and * halft (from * helpanan "to help"). A later change that was fed by the spirant law was the disappearance of /n/ before /x/ . The preceding vowel received compensatory lengthening and was nasalised: For example, *bringaną "to bring", past tense *branhtǭ > *brą̄htǭ (whence English bring , brought ; German bringen , brachte ; Danish bringe , bragte ). That nasalisation

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