We approach the analysis of the extent of the projectivity of modules from a fresh perspective as we introduce the notion of relative subprojectivity. A module M and is said to be N -subprojective if for every epimorphism g : B → N and homomorphism f : M → N , there exists a homomorphism h : M → B such that gh = f . For a module M , the subprojectivity domain of M is defined to be the collection of all modules N such that M is N -subprojective. We consider, for every ring R, the subprojective profile of R, namely, the class of all subprojectivity domains for R modules. We show that the subprojective profile of R is a semilattice, and consider when this structure has coatoms or a smallest element. Modules whose subprojectivity domain is smallest as possible will be called subprojectively poor (sp-poor) or projectively indigent (pindigent) and those with co-atomic subprojectivy domain are said to be maximally subprojective. While we do not know if sp-poor modules and maximally subprojective modules exist over every ring, their existence is determined for various families. For example, we determine that artinian serial rings have sp-poor modules and attain the existence of maximally subprojective modules over the integers and for arbitrary V-rings. This work is a natural continuation to recent papers that have embraced the systematic study of the injective, projective and subinjective profiles of rings.

The study of pure-injectivity is accessed from an alternative point of view. A module M is called pure-subinjective relative to a module N if for every pure extension K of N, every homomorphism N → M can be extended to a homomorphism K → M. The pure-subinjectivity domain of the module M is defined to be the class of modules N such that M is N-pure-subinjective. Basic properties of the notion of pure-subinjectivity are investigated. We obtain characterizations for various types of rings and modules, including absolutely pure (or, FP-injective) modules, von Neumann regular rings and (pure-) semisimple rings in terms of pure-subinjectivity domains. We also consider cotorsion modules, endomorphism rings of certain modules, and, for a module N, (pure) quotients of N-pure-subinjective modules.