Clitically

Clitically is a term used mainly in linguistics to describe something relating to clitics or the process of cliticization. It is formed from the noun clitic with the adverbial suffix -ly and is not widely used outside scholarly discussions of word formation and syntax. Because clitics are phonologically dependent morphemes that attach to a host word, cliticization is the process by which a free-standing element becomes a clitic or behaves like one in a given linguistic context. The adverb clitically can be used to discuss how such attachment occurs or how clitics function in a language.

In linguistic description, a clitic is a word or part of a word that acts like a word but relies on another word for phonological support. Clitics typically attach to a host word and may exhibit restricted prosody or syntactic distribution. Describing a form as clitically attached or clitically realized conveys that its realization depends on the surrounding material, and that its placement or pronunciation follows clitic-specific patterns. For example, in many Romance languages, pronouns can be attached to verbs in ways that are described as clitic or clitically attached, as seen in forms like dammelo in Italian (give-me-it).

Notes on usage and scope: clitically is not a common everyday term and is mostly found in technical linguistic writing. In general prose, writers might instead say “clitic attached” or “cliticized.” The term should not be confused with anatomical uses of the word clitoral or clitoris, which refer to the female genital anatomy.