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ENCLITIC

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In linguistics, a clitic is a word that syntactically functions as a free morpheme, but phonetically appears as a bound morpheme, as it is always pronounced with the preceding or following word. If a clitic attaches to the end of a preceding word, it is called an enclitic. If it attached to the front of a following word, it is called a proclitic. Some languages, like Portuguese, have mesoclitics, which are inserted in the middle of the word.

A clitic and the word to which it attaches (called its host) are pronounced as a single unit, and this unit adheres to the grammatical rules of the language in which it is found. A clitic is never stressed, although its host might be. In formal writing, clitics are often written as separate words.

It is important to note that a clitic is not an affix. An affix syntactically and phonologically attaches to a base morpheme of a limited part of speech, such as a verb, to form a new word. A clitic syntactically functions above the word level, on the phrase or clause level, and attaches only phonetically to the first, last, or only word in the phrase or clause, whichever part of speech the word belongs to. By definition, clitics do not belong to lexical categories such as nouns, verbs, or adpositions.

Examples

In the Indo-European languages, some clitics can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European: for example, *-kwe is the original form of Latin -que, Greek te, and Sanskrit -ca. This word means "and" and is said after the word being added, e.g. Senatus Populusque Romanus "Senate and People of Rome".

English enclitics include:

  • The abbreviated forms of be:
    • 'm in I'm
    • 're in you're
    • 's in she's
  • The abbreviated forms of auxiliary verbs:
    • 'll in they'll
    • 've in they've
  • To express the possessive of a phrase:
    • 's in the girl next door's cat (It's not just the door's cat.)

And English proclitics include:

  • a in a desk
  • an in an egg
  • the in the house

Note that the choice of a or an is sensitive to the author's preferred pronunciation where the word that follows has more than one received pronunciation. A particularly extreme example of this occurs with the computer jargon-word SQL which is variously pronounced ess-cue-el (see English alphabet) or in a phonetically-amalgamated form that mirrors the word sequel.

  • a in a SQL server - pronounced a sequel server
  • an in an SQL server - pronounced an ess-cue-el server

The rule more generally is that the form an occurs before a spoken vowel sound regardless of how the word is spelled. The English words 'honour', 'heir' and 'hour' are spoken with an initial vowel sound and always take an; 'herb' and 'hotel' are spoken either with or without an initial vowel sound depending on time and place, and variously take a or an depending on spoken convention.[1]

The negation suffix n't as in couldn't etc. has been proven to be an affix rather than a clitic (Zwicky & Pullum, 1983). In English, clitics must be unstressed, but not cannot be unstressed.

  • I have not done it yet.
  • I've not done it yet.
  • I haven't done it yet.
  • *I'ven't done it yet. (wrong)

Stress also prevents cliticization as follows:

  • I don't know who she is. (*I don't know who she's.)
  • Have you done it? - Yes, I have. (*Yes, I've.)
  • He's not a fool. - He is a fool! (*He's a fool!) cf. He's not a genius, either.

In the Romance languages, the articles and the non-emphatic object pronouns are all clitics. In Spanish, for example:

las aguas ("the waters") = /la'saguas/
lo atamos ("we tied it") = /loa'tamos/
dámelo ("give it to me") = /'damelo/

Clitics in other languages:

  • Latin: que and, ve or, ne (yes-no question)
  • Greek: te and, de but, gar for (in a logical argument), oun therefore
  • Russian: ли (yes-no question), же (emphasis), не not (proclitic), бы (subjunctive)
  • Japanese: all particles, such as the genitive postposition の no and the topic marker は wa
  • Dutch: 't definite article of neuter nouns and third person pronoun, 'k first person pronoun, je second person pronoun, -ie third person pronoun (this one should not be written as a separate word, i.e "Doet-ie 't nog?": "Is it still working?"; lit. "Does it still do it?")
  • Plautdietsch: "Deit'a't vondoag?": "Will he do it today?"

External links

See also