6

Zompist has a Sound Change Applier that comes with some example rules:

[sm]//_#  
i/j/_V  
L/V/_  
e//Vr_#  
v//V_V  
u/o/_#  
gn/nh/_  
S/Z/V_V  
c/i/F_t  
c/u/B_t  
p//V_t  
ii/i/_  
e//C_rV

Is there a set of similar rules that would "undo" Grimm's Law sound changes?

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

Define categories for aspirated and unaspirated voiced stops, voiceless stops, and fricatives:

A=ḅḍġǵ
U=bdgɠ
V=ptkƙ
F=φþxẍ

(I’m forced to use strange characters for each of these phones due to the one-character-per-phone restriction of SCA².)

Then Grimm’s law can be reversed as follows:

U/A/_
V/U/_
F/V/_

(As far as I can tell, PIE had none of /ɸ θ x xʷ/. If it had, Grimm’s law would of course be impossible to undo as it would have caused mergers. Luckily, this does not appear to have been the case.)

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2
  • That's excellent
    – AncientSwordRage
    Aug 19, 2021 at 10:28
  • 2
    Well, PIE itself probably did have /x/ and possibly /xʷ/ (though the latter was more likely voiced /ɣ ~ ɣʷ/): they’re normally written h2 and h3 when reconstructing (with subscript numbers which I can’t type on my phone). But they were lost before Grimm’s law happened, so the (pre-)Germanic stage that’s relevant here didn’t have them.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Dec 9, 2021 at 0:41

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