Germanic
Journal: Cambridge University Press eBooks
Year: 2022

The chapter establishes Germanic as an Indo-European branch by identifying phonological and morphological innovations common to all Germanic languages, e.g. Rask/Grimm's Law, Verner's Law and the grammation of a complex verbal system with strong, weak and preterite-present verbs. Furthermore, the chapter identifies three Germanic sub-branches (East, North, West) and discusses the possibility of binary splits leading to intermediary subgroupings, of which either North-West or North-East Germanic