morphemesclitics

Morphemesclitics are a type of morpheme that are phonologically bound to a host word but are grammatically independent. They often express grammatical relations such as tense, mood, person, or number, but they cannot stand alone as words. This distinguishes them from free morphemes, which can occur independently. Clitics are often unstressed and are typically attached to the end of a word (enclitics) or the beginning of a word (proclitics). Some languages have both types of clitics. The term clitic comes from the Greek word 'klitikos', meaning "able to lean."

The grammatical function of clitics can vary widely. For example, in English, the contracted forms like 'll in "I'll" (I will) or 's in "he's" (he is/has) function as clitics. These are often considered to be grammaticalized clitics. In other languages, clitics play a more prominent role in conveying core grammatical information. For instance, in many Slavic languages, personal pronouns can function as clitics, attaching to verbs or other words in the sentence. The precise classification of a morpheme as a clitic can sometimes be debated, as it depends on a combination of phonological, morphological, and syntactic criteria. The phenomenon of cliticization is found across a wide range of the world's languages.