Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univ., Diss., 1976 — 124 pp.
[Nussbaum’s] view of the matter is that there is no ‘law’ involved at all. This is not to be interpreted as accusing a regularity of having been supposed where it does not really exist (as some attacks on Brugmann’s or Lachmann’s or Grassmann’s laws actually do); nor does it amount to a correcting of the placing of the regularity. It is rather a matter of establishing a set of correlated morphological properties of considerable regularity, but recognizing their quite limited distribution (as a set). A PIE root may, or may not, possess a ‘Caland system’. For instance, a stative verb formed by suffixal -e- (cf. Watkins 1971) is one member of a set of derivatives of its root. In the nominal sector the root should possess a neuter in -e/os-. In the adjectival scatter there will be a choice among suffixes - all equally original — in -ro- or -u- or + or -ont-, with further possible combinations or extensions. Distributional rules can and should be supplied. For instance, in Indie the -i- form is the regular choice for the first clement of a compound. No diachronic priority can be stated, as between the alternants; the mere discovery and distributional statement of the set is the essence of the Caland affair. There are further subtleties, though. Suffixes may be central or marginal, a distinction which permits their co-functioning.
