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Examples of historical chain shifts in English are the Great Vowel Shift in the 15th Century , and the ongoing Northern Cities Vowel Shift .

While a chain shift usually occurs as a set of Vowel Shift s, chain shifts can also occur in consonants. For example, a set of Plosive s that have a Voiced / Voiceless distinction may shift to have a Aspirated / Unaspirated distinction. In this case, the voiceless consonants become aspirated, and the voiced consonants become voiceless.

A famous example of such a shift is the well-known Grimm's Law which turned the Proto-Indo-European voiceless/voiced/breathy-voiced distinction into a fricative/voiceless/voiced distinction in Germanic. Another is the High German Consonant Shift which separates Germanic from Modern German.