Clitic

In linguistics, a clitic is a word that syntactically functions as a free morpheme, but phonetically appears as a bound morpheme; it is always pronounced with a following or preceding word. A clitic is either an enclitic, where the clitic is with the preceding word, or a proclitic, which is with the following word.

Related Topics:
Linguistics - Word - Syntactically - Free morpheme - Bound morpheme

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Affix - Morpheme - Part of speech - Phrase - Clause

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