Change the format of a word in Emacs-AUCTeX without actually selecting it

Change the format of a word in Emacs-AUCTeX without actually selecting it

One nice feature of modern word processors is that one can change the
format (say, from roman to italic) of a word without actually selecting
it; one just needs to place the text cursor within the word and tell the
word processor (via a keyboard shortcut) to change its format. (Smart
editing, I believe it is sometimes called.)
Is there a way of doing that in Emacs-AUCTeX? (The usual way to change the
format---that is, insert a format command---is to select the word [mark
its region] and then press the key combination for the command [e.g. C-c
C-f C-i to insert \textit{}].)