Grimm's Law and Verner's Law Notes
tags: anglo-saxon studies, germanic languages, grimm's law, history of english, linguistics, medieval studies, students, study tips, tutorials, verner's lawGrimm’s Law
Grimm’s law concerns an unconditioned sound change that affects all
Indo-European stops. In this change (examples mostly from Brinton and Arnovick),
Voiceless stops became voiceless fricatives
| PIE | PGmc | Examples |
| Voiceless stops | Voiceless fricatives | |
| *p | *f | PIE *peisk- vs. OE fisc ‘fish’ |
| *t | *θ | PIE *tenu ‘to stretch’ vs. PDE thin |
| *k | *x or *h (word-initial) | PIE *krewə ‘raw meat/blood’ vs. OE hrēaw ‘raw’ |
| *kw | *xw or *hw (word-initial) | PIE *kwod ‘what’ vs. OE hwæt ‘what’ |
Voiced stops became voiceless stops
| PIE | PGmc | Examples |
| Voiced stops | Voiceless stops | |
| *b | *p | PIE *kan(n)abi- ‘cannabis’ vs. PDE hemp |
| *d | *t | PIE *dekm vs. PDE ten |
| *g | *k | PIE *grənom vs. PDE corn |
| *gw | *kw | PIE *gwei- vs. OE cwicu ‘alive’ |
Voiced aspirated stops became voiced fricatives and then voiced stops.
| PIE | PGmc | Examples | |
| Voiced aspirated stops | Voiced fricatives | Voiceless Fricatives | |
| *bh | *β | *b | PIE *bhrāter vs. OE broþer |
| *dh | *ð | *d | PIE * əndhero- vs. OE under |
| *gh | *ɣ | *g or *h (word-initial) | PIE *wegh vs. OE weg ‘road, way’ |
| *gwh | *ɣw | *g or *w | PIE *gwher ‘to heat’ vs. OE warm |
Verner’s law
The first group mentioned above (voiceless stops) underwent an additional change in certain contexts due to the change from variable accent in Indo-European to fixed initial accent in Germanic. When these sounds appeared in a voiced environment (i.e. not initially or finally or next to other voiceless consonants) and were not immediately proceeded by the Indo-European stress, they went on to become a voiced stop. Under the same conditions, Indo-European */s/ became Germanic */r/.
| PIE | PGmc | Examples | |
| Voiceless stops | Voiced fricatives | Voiced stops | |
| *p | *β | *b | PIE *septm vs. Gothic síbun ‘seven’ |
| *t | *ð | *d | PIE *pətēr vs. OE fæder ‘father’ (medial sound: d rather than t) |
| *k | *ɣ | *g | PIE *dukā vs. OE togian ‘tow’ |
| *s | *z | *r | PIE *ghaiso ‘stick’ vs. OE gār ‘spear’ |
A mnemonic
A useful way of remembering these sound changes (taught to me by Philip Rusche of UNLV) is to diagram each row of the above tables as a triangle:
To find the result of Grimm’s law, go one step clockwise around the triangle. Thus using the first triangle, we can see that PIE *bh became Gmc *b, PIE *b became Gmc *p, and PIE *p became Gmc *f. Verner’s law only affects the consonants at the top of the triangle. To see what they became after the effect of Verner’s law, go two steps clockwise around the triangle: so PIE *p became Gmc *b when it was subject to Verner’s law.
Posted: Monday March 5, 2007. 14:37.
Last modified: Wednesday May 23, 2012. 19:16.
