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Latin has some suffixes that turn nouns into adjectives. But there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to which suffixes get applied to which nouns. For example:
felis->felinuscanis->caninusBut
apis->apianusavis->avianusDoes anyone know where this distinction comes from? Was there perhaps an ending in Old Latin that influenced the choice of suffix and then disappeared?
I don't have a source for this at hand, but I would assume that the -anus suffix originated in a-stems: that is, the original suffix was -nus, but added to an a-stem it was -a-nus. This -anus would then have spread by analogy to nouns that aren't a-stems, too.
This is a common type of process; for a close parallel cf. the Greek feminine suffix -ssa, which originally arose by the addition of *-ya to t- and k-stems (e.g. *melit-ya > melissa "bee", *Phoinik-ya > Phoinissa "Phoenician woman"), but then became productive with all kinds of nouns (e.g. basilissa "queen").
