clitische

Clitische (clitics) are a class of small linguistic elements that behave syntactically as independent words but are phonologically bound to a host word. They typically lack independent stress and rely on an adjacent word for prosody, which keeps them from forming a standalone phonological word. Clitics occur in many languages and serve a range of functions, including pronouns, mood or aspect markers, and enclitic or proclitic particles.

Clitics are often categorized by their position relative to the host word. Proclitics attach before the host (for example, certain pronouns or particles that precede the verb), while enclitics attach after the host (common in many Romance, Slavic, and other languages). Some languages allow several clitics to form clusters on a single host verb, and the placement of these clitics can be sensitive to syntactic and prosodic context, sometimes changing within a clause or across languages.

Common examples include clitic pronouns in Romance languages, such as Spanish me, te, lo, and French me, te, le, which attach to verbs or verb phrases. English exhibits clitic-like contractions such as n't in can't or I'm, which are analyzed as bound morphemes that attach to preceding words in many frameworks. In other languages, clitics mark person, number, object, mood, tense, or definiteness, and they may interact with word order in systematic ways.

Clitiche are distinct from bound affixes in distribution and prosody: they behave like separate functional units in syntax but do not form independent prosodic words. They are a key area of study in linguistic typology and syntax, with phenomena such as clitic doubling, enclisis/proclisis, and clitic climbing illustrating cross-language variation.