Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Grimm’s law (also Germanic sound shift)
Systematic changes in the Indo-European system of obstruents that led to the development of Germanic and its differentiation from the other Indo-European language families. Differences between Old Norse, Greek, and Latin, discovered by the Danish linguist R.K.Rask, based on language comparisons (
comparative linguistics, reconstruction), were first represented in 1822 by J.Grimm as systematic sound changes. In his comparison, Grimm drew on Sanskrit as the (supposedly direct) successor to Indo-European.
Grimm’s law deals primarily with three consonantal changes. (a) The voiceless stops [p, t, k] become voiceless fricatives [f, θ, χ] [IE 
, Lat. pater, Eng. father; IE 
, Lat. tres, Goth. þreis, Eng. three’, IE 
, Lat. centum, Eng. hundred). Regular exceptions to these changes are: (i) the shift does not take effect after Indo-European obstruents (Grk steícho, OE stīgan; Lat. spuo, OE spīwan; Lat. piscis, OE fisc; Lat. captus; OE hœft); (ii) Verner’s law supersedes Grimm’s law; thus voiceless or voiced fricatives arise, depending on the placement of word accent; the latter collapse into the group of voiced fricatives that develop from the shift of aspirated stops (see (c) below). (b) The voiced stops [b, d, g] become voiceless stops [p, t, k] (Lat. decem, Eng. ten; Lat. genu, Eng. knee). (c) The aspirated stops [bh, dh, gh] become voiced fricatives 
, which in turn shift to the stops [b, d, g] (Old Indic bharati, Goth. bairan ‘bear’; Old Indic madhya, Goth. midjis ‘middle’; IE *ghostis, Eng. guest).
Much controversy surrounds the dating of the Germanic sound shift; in any case, it is plausible to posit its beginning around 1200–1000 BC and its completion, as evidenced by Celtic loan words, around 500–300 BC. Similarly controversial are hypotheses about the cause(s) and course of the sound shift; recently, the very existence of the Germanic sound shift, in the form described here, has been denied. Among other pieces of evidence adduced is the topological implausibility of the customary reconstruction of the Indo-European consonant system (voiceless tenues, voiced mediae, voiced aspirated mediae) which speaks against the prevailing conception of the sound shift. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1973) proposed a typologically more realistic reconstruction of Indo-European, according to which the changes occurring in Germanic are to be seen as relatively marginal; however, in this analysis those languages traditionally considered to have been affected by the sound shift would be more closely related to the Indo-European consonantism than those languages that were not so affected. ( also language change, sound change, tenuis vs media)
References
Collinge, N.E. 1985. The laws of Indo-European. Amsterdam and Philadelphia.
63–71.
Fourquet, J. 1948. Les mutations consonantiques du germanique. Paris.
——1954. Die Nachwirkungen der ersten und zweiten Lautverschiebung. ZM 22.1–33.
Gamkrelidze, T. and V.Ivanov. 1973. Sprachtypologie und die Rekonstruktion der gemeīnindogerma-nischen Verschlüsse. Phonetica 27.150–6.
Gamkrelidze, T.V. 1981. Language typology and language universals and their implications for the reconstruction of the Indo-European stop system. In Y.Arbeitman and A.R.Bomhard (eds), Essays in historical linguistics in honor of J.A.Kerns. Amsterdam. 571–609.
Grimm, J. 1819–37. Deutsche Grammatik, 4 parts. Göttingen. (Facsimile printing of the 2nd edn of Berlin 1870/8, Hildesheim, 1967.)
Hammerich, L.L. 1955. Die Germanische und die Hochdeutsche Lautverschiebung. PBB (H) 77.1–29 and 165–203.
Hopper, P. 1973. Glottalized and murmured occlusives in Indo-European. Glossa 7.141–66.
Rask, R.K. 1818. Untersuchung über den Ursprung der alten nordischen oder isländischen Sprache. (Repr. in L.Hjelmslev (ed.), Ausgewählte Abhandlungen. Copenhagen, 1932.)
Schrodt, R. 1976. Die germanische Lautverschiebung und ihre Stellung im Kreise der indogermanischen Sprachen, 2nd edn. Vienna.
Vennemann, T. 1984. Hoch- und Niedergermanisch: die Verzweigungstheorie der germanischdeutschen Lautverschiebungen. PBB 106.1–45.
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