autoaggiunti

Autoaggiunti is a term used in linguistics to denote a process by which an affix or derivational element is added to a word to express self-involvement or self-reference. The word itself is formed from auto-, meaning self, and aggiunti, meaning added; its usage is chiefly theoretical and appears in discussions of word formation and morphology. The concept is used to describe a subtype of affixation in which the added material conveys emphasis on the subject's own role in the action or state, sometimes overlapping with reflexive or intensive constructions but treated as a distinct morpho-semantic phenomenon. In typical analyses, autoaggiunti may involve affixes, reduplication, or clitic sequences that accompany the base form. In languages that are described as employing autoaggiunti, the mechanism is analyzed as a way to encode self-ownership or self-application within the predicate.

Productivity and cross-linguistic occurrence: Autoaggiunti is not widely attested as a universal category; it is mainly discussed in studies of experimental or constructed languages, and in some theoretical analyses of non-standard dialects where self-referential meaning is morphologically marked. It may function similarly to reflexive or intensive forms but is argued to encode a more explicit sense of self-ownership or self-application of the action.

Examples and analysis: Since the term is largely theoretic, published examples are limited. In descriptions, an autoaggiunti form accompanies predicates to mark that the subject performs the action on themselves or adds a self-affirming nuance. Researchers examine its coherence with existing morphologies, its diachronic viability, and whether it constitutes a distinct grammatical category or a pragmatic device.

Relation to other concepts: Autoaggiunti is discussed alongside affixation, cliticization, reduplication, reflexivization, and autonyms; its status as a separate category is debated.