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We find occurring in surnames examples of those consonantal changes which do not violate the great Phonetic law that such changes can only occur regularly within the same group, i.e. that a labial cannot alternate with a palatal, or a dental with either.

According to phonetic law the latter word should have become litch in modern English; but it very early underwent a punning alteration which made it homophonous with the ancient word for physician.

It is highly significant of the nature of the slow spread of a “phonetic law” that there is local vacillation at present in several words.

If they all, or practically all, are taken by the drift, phonetic law 13 will be as “regular,” as sweeping, as most of the twelve that have preceded it.

Language as a Historical Product: Phonetic Law Parallels in drift in related languages.