Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A clitic that is attached to the end of another word. In Give 'em the works, the pronoun 'em is an enclitic.
- noun A clitic.
- adjective Of or relating to an enclitic or enclisis; forming an accentual unit with the preceding word.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Leaning on or against something else.
- Specifically
- In grammar, subjoined and accentually dependent: said of a word or particle which in regard to accent forms a part of a preceding word and is treated as if one with it, or gives up its separate accent, sometimes affecting that of its predecessor.
- In obstetrics, opposed to synclitic (which see).
- noun In grammar, a word accentually connected with a preceding word, as que (and) in Latin: arma virumque, arms and the man.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Gram.) A word which is joined to another so closely as to lose its proper accent, as the pronoun
thee inprithee (pray thee). - adjective (Gram.) Affixed; subjoined; -- said of a word or particle which leans back upon the preceding word so as to become a part of it, and to lose its own independent accent, generally varying also the accent of the preceding word.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun linguistics A
clitic which phonetically joins with the preceding word. In English, thepossessive 's is an example. - adjective grammar Affixed phonetically.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word enclitic.
Examples
-
The "enclitic" neatly encapsulates Mosses thesis about the relations between originary languages and vernaculars, between primary languages and stranger idioms, between literary languages and invading languages, with "mixed jargons" and a changed "mother idiom" as a result.
-
No. 51; accent from "enclitic," § 3. 55. vii, 20. 56.
Greek in a Nutshell James Strong
-
NB: Avamshâm is avam "him" plus -shâm, which is a dative 3rd person plural enclitic pronoun.
Contradictions with authors' accounts of Etruscan word Rasna 2009
-
A characteristic trait of Danish and the rest of the Nordic languages is the presence of the enclitic definite article.
-
However, an enclitic accusative demonstrative may still precede or follow an unmarked object and this is probably the most direct indication that accusative nouns are simply unmarked in that case.
Contradictions with authors' accounts of Etruscan word Rasna 2009
-
MIE enclitic *mas regularly becomes *n̥s via Syncope, and was then later extended analogically as *nos by the time of PIE proper.
The trouble with the PIE 1st & 2nd person plural endings (3) 2008
-
So, like I said already, primary stress accent in Mid IE was much like in Polish and fell on the penultimate syllable (second-from-last syllable) by default unless a suffix was derived from an Old IE agglutinated enclitic in which case the antepenultimate (third-from-last syllable) was chosen.
Sporadic phonetic changes in the Indo-European case system 2008
-
Antepenultimate accentuation only ever surfaces in words with enclitic extensions like *-sa and *-ta.
-
MIE enclitic *mas regularly becomes *n̥s via Syncope, and was then later extended analogically as *nos by the time of PIE proper.
Archive 2008-10-01 2008
-
A lovely analogy of such a thing is found in my native language Dutch; which has variant forms of most pronouns though they're all enclitic to the verb
Back to business: emphatic particles and verbal extensions 2008
ofravens commented on the word enclitic
Because I am actually ten years old, this word sounds vaguely dirty.
June 21, 2008
Prolagus commented on the word enclitic
An Italian writer, Brunella Gasperini, wrote once about how exclaming "Jesus!" sounds so much more acceptable than "Christ!"...
June 21, 2008
johnmperry commented on the word enclitic
A clitic that follows its host
June 21, 2008
jmjarmstrong commented on the word enclitic
JM is a severe critic of all instances of enclitic that just get'em wrong.
March 29, 2011