Re: placename nomenclature [was Re: Attn: Spanish speakers]

Philip Newton writes:
 > On 30 Aug 02, at 18:35, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
 >
 > > Quoting Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>:
 > >
 > > Missed this one.  Are we talking about a name for names of people,
 > > or just the generic name of for people inhabiting a given place?
 >
 > I understood it as referring to "words used for inhabitants of a
 > certain place", especially when not formed regularly. For example,
 > "Chinese" from "China" but not "Americese" from "America".
 >
I'm not entirely convinced that the "-an"/"-ian"/"-ese" split can't be
regularly predicted when you take into account various features like
prosody, number of syllables etc.  At least as a stereotype - there are
probably exceptions.