Grassmann's Law - Other Languages

Other Languages

Grassmann's Law is also known to occur in Ofo, an extinct and underdocumented Siouan language. The law is found in compounds such as the following:

• o´skha ('the crane') + afhaⁿ´ ('white') → oskạfha ('the white egret')

A similar phenomenon occurs in Meitei (a Tibeto-Burman language) in which an aspirated consonant is deaspirated if preceded by an aspirated consonant (including /h/, /s/) in the previous syllable. The deaspirated consonants are then voiced between sonorants.

• /tʰin-/ ('pierce') + /-khət/ ('upward') → ('pierce upwards')
• /səŋ/ ('cow') + /kʰom/ ('udder') → ('milk')
• /hi-/ ('trim') + /-tʰok/ ('outward') → ('trim outwards')