clitic
/ˈklɪtɪk/
clitic noun: a morpheme that functions like a word, but never appears as an independent word, instead being always attached to a following or preceding word (or, in some cases, within a surrounding word).
Noun
clitic (plural clitics)
- A morpheme that functions like a word, but never appears as an independent word, instead being always attached to a following or preceding word (or, in some cases, within a surrounding word).
- In fact, even within the northern Italian dialects, subject clitics do not constitute a syntactically uniform class, as has been convincingly argued in Poletto's work.1997, Raffaella Zanuttini, Negation and Clausal Structure, Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax, page 29
- In Macedonian, clitic-doubling is a fully-fledged phenomenon. The Macedonian Dat and Acc pronominal clitics, which originate in agreement phrases and move to preverbal position,¹⁰ where they cluster with other clausal clitics, are on their way to becoming mere case markers, which formally...2006, Olga Mišeska Tomić, Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features, page 242
clitic meaning in Tamil and Indonesian
clitic in Tamil
- இடைச்சொல்
clitic in Indonesian
- morpheme attached to another word
- klitik
Examples of clitic in a sentence
- In Macedonian, clitic-doubling is a fully-fledged phenomenon.2006, Olga Mišeska Tomić, Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features, page 242:
- Here, we will see that they also have problems with overt pronouns, especially object clitics, whose emergence is more delayed than in typically developing children.2009, Philippe Prévost, The Acquisition of French, Language Acquisition and Language Disorders: 51, page 196
Forms of clitic
| plural | clitics |
|---|
Origin of clitic
From Ancient Greek κλιτικός (klitikós, “inflexional”).
Words formed from clitic
Words that rhyme with clitic
Questions about clitic
- What does clitic mean?
- Clitic means a morpheme that functions like a word, but never appears as an independent word, instead being always attached to a following or preceding word (or, in some cases, within a surrounding word).
- What is clitic in Tamil?
- Clitic in Tamil is இடைச்சொல். See Clitic meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use clitic in a sentence?
- In Macedonian, clitic-doubling is a fully-fledged phenomenon.
- What part of speech is clitic?
- Clitic is a noun.
- How do you pronounce clitic?
- Clitic is pronounced /ˈklɪtɪk/.
- What is the plural of clitic?
- The plural of clitic is clitics.
Words near clitic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clitic (page history and authors); clitic (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-clitic.wav.
Cite this entry: “clitic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clitic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.