Grimm's law
E37887
Grimm's law is a fundamental linguistic principle describing the systematic consonant shifts that distinguish the Germanic languages from other Indo-European branches.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Grimm's law canonical | 10 |
| First Germanic Sound Shift | 1 |
| Germanic consonant shifts | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T293990 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Grimm's law Context triple: [Germanic languages, underwentSoundChange, Grimm's law]
-
A.
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law is a historical sound change in early Germanic languages that caused the loss of nasal consonants before fricatives, leaving characteristic vowel changes in Anglo-Frisian and related dialects.
-
B.
Germanic languages
Germanic languages are a major branch of the Indo-European language family that includes languages such as English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages, sharing common historical origins and linguistic features.
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C.
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed common ancestor of all Germanic languages, including English, German, and the Norse languages.
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D.
Lombardic
Lombardic is an extinct West Germanic language once spoken by the Lombards in parts of Italy during the early Middle Ages.
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E.
Osco-Umbrian languages
The Osco-Umbrian languages are an extinct branch of ancient Italic languages once spoken in central and southern Italy, including Oscan and Umbrian.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Grimm's law Target entity description: Grimm's law is a fundamental linguistic principle describing the systematic consonant shifts that distinguish the Germanic languages from other Indo-European branches.
-
A.
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law is a historical sound change in early Germanic languages that caused the loss of nasal consonants before fricatives, leaving characteristic vowel changes in Anglo-Frisian and related dialects.
-
B.
Germanic languages
Germanic languages are a major branch of the Indo-European language family that includes languages such as English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages, sharing common historical origins and linguistic features.
-
C.
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed common ancestor of all Germanic languages, including English, German, and the Norse languages.
-
D.
Lombardic
Lombardic is an extinct West Germanic language once spoken by the Lombards in parts of Italy during the early Middle Ages.
-
E.
Osco-Umbrian languages
The Osco-Umbrian languages are an extinct branch of ancient Italic languages once spoken in central and southern Italy, including Oscan and Umbrian.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (51)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
historical linguistics concept
ⓘ
law of consonant shift ⓘ phonological rule ⓘ sound law ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Grimm's law
ⓘ
surface form:
First Germanic Sound Shift
|
| appliesTo |
Proto-Germanic
ⓘ
Proto-Indo-European ⓘ |
| appliesWithin |
intervocalic position
ⓘ
word-initial position ⓘ |
| coreChangeType |
devoicing
ⓘ
fortition and lenition patterns ⓘ spirantization ⓘ stop consonant shift ⓘ |
| describes | systematic consonant shifts ⓘ |
| distinguishes |
Germanic branch of Indo-European
ⓘ
Germanic languages ⓘ |
| explains |
correspondence Latin cornu – English horn
ⓘ
correspondence Latin decem – English ten ⓘ correspondence Latin pater – English father ⓘ correspondence Latin tres – English three ⓘ |
| field |
Germanic languages
ⓘ
surface form:
Germanic linguistics
Indo-European linguistics ⓘ historical linguistics ⓘ |
| hasExceptionsExplainedBy | Verner's law ⓘ |
| historicalFormulationCentury | 19th century ⓘ |
| influenced | Neogrammarian hypothesis of sound laws ⓘ |
| involves |
Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops
ⓘ
Proto-Indo-European voiced stops ⓘ Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops ⓘ |
| isPartOf | comparative method in linguistics ⓘ |
| languageFamilyContext |
Indo-European language family
ⓘ
surface form:
Indo-European languages
|
| maps |
PIE *b to PGmc *p
ⓘ
PIE *bh to PGmc *b ⓘ PIE *d to PGmc *t ⓘ PIE *dh to PGmc *d ⓘ PIE *g to PGmc *k ⓘ PIE *gh to PGmc *g ⓘ PIE *gʷ to PGmc *kʷ ⓘ PIE *gʷh to PGmc *gʷ ⓘ PIE *k to PGmc *x ⓘ PIE *kʷ to PGmc *xʷ or *hw ⓘ PIE *p to PGmc *f ⓘ PIE *t to PGmc *θ ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Jacob Grimm ⓘ |
| precedes | Verner's law ⓘ |
| resultIn |
Proto-Germanic voiced stops
ⓘ
Proto-Germanic voiceless fricatives ⓘ Proto-Germanic voiceless stops ⓘ |
| timeDepth | Proto-Germanic period ⓘ |
| usedFor |
establishing genetic relationship of Germanic to Indo-European
ⓘ
reconstruction of Proto-Germanic forms ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Grimm's law Description of subject: Grimm's law is a fundamental linguistic principle describing the systematic consonant shifts that distinguish the Germanic languages from other Indo-European branches.
Referenced by (12)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
First Germanic Sound Shift
this entity surface form:
Germanic consonant shifts