  We show that the compatibility of the relative canonical sheaf with base
change fails generally in families of normal varieties. Furthermore, it always
fails if the general fiber of a family of pure dimension n is Cohen-Macaulay
and the special fiber contains a strictly S_{n-1} point. In particular, in
moduli spaces with functorial relative canonical sheaves Cohen-Macaulay schemes
can not degenerate to S_{n-1} schemes. Another, less immediate consequence is
that the canonical sheaf of an S_{n-1}, G_2 scheme of pure dimension n is not
S_3.
