Where do the bullets come from on <li> elements?

My current understanding is that different HTML elements are separated in their functionality by their default CSS styling, semantics aside.

Using custom CSS, you could (inadvisably) make any HTML element behave like any other.

If that is correct, the only thing I cannot account for is the bullets on <li> elements. What CSS causes them? How can you add that to other elements?

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Note to future readers: I recently learned HTML elements also differ by content categories.

The bullets are contained "within" the padding of <ul> element:

The padding is marked green and the margin orange:

Decreasing the padding shows that the bullets are "within" that padding:

Increasing the margin of the <ul> for example, shifts it right.

The list-style property controls the bullets themselves. Setting it to none will hide them. You would need to set the margin and padding to 0 if you want to get rid of the indent too.

ul
{
    list-style: none;
}

If you want to get rid of all margins / paddings and the bullet points, use this:

ul
{
    list-style: none;
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

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Of course you can also apply bullets to other HTML controls:

div
{
    padding-left: 40px;
}
a
{
    display: list-item;
    list-style: disc;
}

<div>
    <a href="#">Item #1</a>
    <a href="#">Item #2</a>
    <a href="#">Item #3</a>
    <a href="#">Item #4</a>
</div>

Browsers typically have a "default stylesheet"—a set of CSS styles applying to specific HTML elements. Take a look at the Firefox default styles, Chrome's default styles, and IE's default styles.

Typically, a <ul> tag has the following default overridable CSS styles:

ul {
  display: block;
  list-style-type: disc;
  margin-before: 1em; /* equivalent to margin-top in most languages */
  margin-after: 1em;  /* equivalent to margin-bottom in most languages */
  margin-start: 0px;  /* equivalent to margin-left in LTR */
  margin-end: 0px;    /* equivalent to margin-right in LTR */
  padding-start: 40px;/* equivalent to padding-left in LTR*/
}

• list-style-type: disc causes a disc icon to appear next to the item.
• list-style-position and list-style-image are unset. Their defaults are outside and none, respectively. This means that the disc icon defined above will appear to the left of the li element (in most languages) and not interfere with the li display box itself.
• The margin and padding settings properly place the content.

An <li> tag as the following:

li {
  display: list-item;
}

• display: list-item is similar to display: block; and allows the separate list items to appear on different lines.

The round bullets for <li> elements is just the browser default. Just like it has a default font, fontsize, underline for links (blue), etc. To make sure you overwrite the browser defaults , use some css reset http://cssreset.com/ , or bootstrap css.

The style for <li> is defined by the <ul> or <ol> surounding it. for example

ul.circle {list-style-type: circle;}
ul.square {list-style-type: square;}
ol.upper-roman {list-style-type: upper-roman;}
ol.lower-alpha {list-style-type: lower-alpha;} 
ul.image{ list-style-image: url("//cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/favicon.ico?v=6cd6089ee7f6");} 
ul.singleline { display:flex; list-style:none; } // css3 only

<ul class="circle">
    <li>one</li>
    <li>two</li>
    <li>three</li>
</ul>
<ul class="square">
    <li>one</li>
    <li>two</li>
    <li>three</li>
</ul>
<ol class="upper-roman">
    <li>one</li>
    <li>two</li>
    <li>three</li>
</ol>
<ol class="lower-alpha">
    <li>one</li>
    <li>two</li>
    <li>three</li>
</ol>
<ul class="image">
    <li>one</li>
    <li>two</li>
    <li>three</li>
</ul>
<ul class="singleline">
    <li>One </li>
    <li>Two </li>
    <li>Three </li>
</ul>

See this page https://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/l/list-style/

The bullets come from ul elements. You can modify them using the properties list-style-type or list-style-image

I think the original question really was, "how can I add bullets to OTHER elements, since CSS supposedly lets you style anything (like p elements) to look like something else (like LI).

The answer seems to be, LI is a special case, AFAIK. Could be wrong. I tried adding <style="display: list-item; list-style-type:disc;"> on <p> elements, and didn't get bullets. (Tested with Chrome only).

You could actually add bullet characters (•) manually or programmatically to the start of each p element, and set margin and padding to look like a UL/LI block, I guess.

The bullets on list items are an example of generated content. Other examples of generated content include the numbers in ordered lists, CSS counters and the :before and :after pseudo-elements.

> What CSS causes them?

Setting display: list-item on an element will make it display bullets. You can change the appearance and position too.

> How can you add that to other elements?

See examples below:

.mylist.type1 > span {
  display: list-item;
  /* inside: the marker is placed inside the element box before its content */
  list-style-position: inside;
}
.mylist.type2 > span {
  display: list-item;
  /* outside (default): the marker is placed outside the element box towards left */
  /* by the way you are not restricted to just bullets */
  list-style-type: lower-roman;
}
.mylist.type2 {
  /* add some room on left for bullets positioned outside */
  padding-left: 2em;
}

<div class="mylist type1">
  <span>Item 1</span>
  <span>Item 2</span>
  <span>Item 3</span>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="mylist type2">
  <span>Item 1</span>
  <span>Item 2</span>
  <span>Item 3</span>
</div>

For more precise control I would suggest that you use pseudo elements (and CSS counters if you want to count).