The New International Encyclopædia/Grimm's Law

GRIMM'S LAW. A phonetic law stating the changes, commonly termed the first and second sound-shiftings, undergone by the mutes or explosives of the Indo-Germanic consonant-system in the Low and High Germanic languages respectively. The law, which is one of the most important of all phonetic laws (see ), was first developed by Jakob Grimm (q.v.), who outlined it in a letter to Lachmann, November 25, 1820, and in the second edition of his Deutsche Grammatik (1822), although the Danish scholar Rask (q.v.) had enunciated its main phenomena in 1819. The law is of much importance in the history of philology (q.v.) as having furnished one of the basal arguments in favor of the theory of the invariability of phonetic law. The fact that there are many words which seem to violate Grimm's law, but which are explained by Verner's law (q.v.) and Grassmann's law (q.v.), is a confirmation of this theory, for it is evident that many linguistic phenomena which are still obscure are probably due to the action of laws which have not yet been discovered. The law of Grimm concerns the mutes, comprising the tenues, mediæ, and mediæ aspiratæ (the tenues aspiratæ being rare and in many cases extremely doubtful) of the Indo-Germanic palatal, velar, and labialized velar series (all combined into palatals in Germanic), ǩ[?], ĝ[?], ĝh[?], q, g, gh, q$ṵ$[?], g$ṵ$[?], g$ṵ$h[?]; dentals, t, d, dh; and labials, p, b, bh. The law in its most general terms may be stated as follows: Indo-Germanic tenues become the corresponding aspiratæ in Low Germanic, and remain unchanged in High Germanic; Indo-Germanic mediæ become the corresponding tenues in Low Germanic and affricatæ in High Germanic; Indo-Germanic mediæ aspiratæ become mediæ in Low Germanic and tenues in High Germanic. Representing, for convenience, the Indo-Germanic palatals, velars, and labialized velars as simple palatals, the following table may be constructed to make the definition clear:

It is evident from the table that the changes are more uniform in Low Germanic than in High Germanic. The various Old High German dialects stand in this respect in different stages of development, as is described in. The dialect which has carried out the High Germanic change most thoroughly is the Alemannic, e.g. thrī, Ger. drei, three; chneo, Ger. Knie, knee; kot, Ger. Gott, God; pruader, Ger. Bruder, brother. As examples of Grimm's law, citations may be made of Indo-Germanic words present in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, English, Old High German, and New High German.

There are certain exceptions in addition to those already indicated in the table. Thus, after s, the tenues remain unchanged (compare sty and its cognates given below: the Indo-Germanic combination pt becomes Germanic ft, and kt,

qt, q$ṵ$t[?] become ht (Gk. κλέπτης, thief, Goth, hliftus; Skt. nakti, night, Goth, nahts), while q$ṵ$[?] and g$ṵ$h[?] have a more complex development than can be outlined here.

The cause of both sound-shiftings has been explained as an increase in the speed of utterance, but this theory is open to many objections. The change seems to be due in reality to an increased force of expiration of the vocal current. Thus it is evident experimentally that an increased stress on a media or sonant will produce a tenuis or surd, as in the emphatic pronunciation of such a word as ‘Gad!’ and in like manner emphatic aspiration, as in the change of t to th, is a recognized phonetic phenomenon. It is noteworthy that changes to some extent analogous to the operation of Grimm's law are found in other languages. Thus in the Bantu group of South Africa a similar change may be observed, and among the Indo-Germanic dialects the Armenian (q.v.) is conspicuous for its change of the old tenues to mediæ, and of the old mediæ to tenues (e.g. Old Armenian p, d = New Armenian b, t).

Chronologically the first sound-shifting seems to have been carried out between B.C. 500 and 250. It began with the change of the tenues to tenues aspiratæ, which then became, as in Greek, voiceless spirants (e.g. t became th, then þ). The second change was that of the Indo-Germanic mediæ aspiratæ to voiced spirants, and then to mediæ (e.g. dh became δ[?], then d). This was accomplished less uniformly than the first change, so that g long retained its spirant value. Verner's law (q.v.) seems to have come into operation at this period. The third change was that of the Indo-Germanic mediæ to tenues. The second or High Germanic sound-shifting apparently took place between the fifth and seventh centuries. The earliest was that of the voiceless þ to the voiced δ[?], whence came d. This began in the Oberdeutsch dialects Alemannic and Bavarian, spread to the Middle Frankish, and finally included the Niederdeutseh group of Lower Frankish and Saxon. The other changes of the second sound-shifting followed, with the limitations already noted, the same geographical course. See .