Markerspronouns

Markerspronouns is a term used in linguistics to describe a class of pronouns whose primary function is to mark grammatical relationships rather than to refer to an entity directly. In this usage, markerspronouns appear as clitics or affixes attaching to a host word—typically a verb or a noun phrase—and encode information such as person, number, case, mood, tense, or voice.

Markerspronouns are distinguished from free-standing personal pronouns by their role as markers within larger words or phrases. They may co-occur with independent pronouns, or in some languages constitute the entire system of argument marking.

Typologically, markerspronouns can be realized as enclitics, suffixes, or particles; their placement relative to the host and their inflectional paradigm vary across languages. They contribute to subject and object marking, possessor marking, demonstrative reference, and other grammatical relations without requiring a separate referent pronoun in the sentence.

Terminology and usage: The term is not universally standardized. Some linguists prefer terms such as clitic pronouns, pronominal affixes, or agreement markers for similar phenomena, and markerspronouns can overlap with these categories depending on analysis.

See also: pronouns, clitics, pronominal affixes, subject marking, object marking, agreement markers.