Clitic (Grammar)
A clitic is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but shows evidence of being phonologically bound to another word.
A clitic may have a nonclitic alternant.
(English)
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The contraction of the morpheme is, as in
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The possessive marker 's, as in
Note: Clitics that occur on the last element of a clause will always cliticize to the end of that element.
Here is a table that compares and contrasts clitics and affixes:
Clitic |
Affix |
---|---|
Functions above the word level syntactically and on the word level phonologically. |
Functions on the word level syntactically and phonologically. |
May attach to words belonging to a variety of syntactic categories. |
Attaches to words belonging to a single syntactic category. |
May attach to words or whole phrases. |
Attaches to single words. |
Occurs at the edge of a word. |
May occur within or at the edges of a word. |
This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library. Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.