Clitic Articles about
Clitic
 

Information About

Clitic




A word and a clitic attached to it are pronounced like a single word, which respects the usual rules of the Language in question. For example, if a word must have one and only one stressed syllable, then a word with a clitic must too (the clitic is usually unstressed). Clitics are often written as separate words.

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 (i.e. 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.


EXAMPLES


In the ''-que'', Greek ''te'', and Sanskrit ''-ca''. This word means "and" and is said after the word being added, e.g. Senatus ''Populusque'' Romani "Senate ''and People'' of Rome".

The English enclitics are:
  • The abbreviated forms of ''be'':

  • --- '''m'' in ''I'm''

  • --- '''re'' in ''you're''

  • --- '''s'' in ''she's''

  • The abbreviated forms of Auxiliary Verb s:

  • --- '''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 the English proclitics are:
  • ''a'' in ''a desk''

  • ''an'' in ''an egg''

  • ''the'' in ''the house''



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 Pronoun s are all clitics. In Spanish , for example:

las aguas

lo hicimos

dámelo


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)

  • s, 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?")



EXTERNAL LINKS



SEE ALSO