pronomini

Pronomini is a term used in linguistic literature to describe a class of pronoun-like elements found across languages. The exact scope of pronomini varies by author, but it generally encompasses personal pronouns, demonstratives, relative and interrogative forms, reflexives, and possessives that function to substitute for noun phrases or to relate them within sentences. Some grammars treat pronomini as a cohesive closed class with its own morphology, while others describe them as a set of related subtypes linked to specific syntactic or pragmatic functions.

Origin and usage of the term are informal in many sources, often derived from combining a root related to pronouns with a pluralizing or class-denoting suffix. Because of this, pronomini can appear with different emphases in different grammars, ranging from a purely functional description to a more formal typological category.

Typology and features commonly associated with pronomini include inflection for person and number, and in some languages for gender, case, clusivity, and formality. Pronomini may appear as independent words or as clitics attached to verbs or nouns, and they play a central role in coreference, deixis, and discourse organization.

In practice, the term pronomini is not universally standardized and may be used differently across linguistic traditions. It is most often encountered in educational materials, certain grammars, and computational linguistics resources that categorize pronoun-like elements for analysis and processing. Readers are advised to check the specific definition used in a given source.