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The Clitic

A clitic is a word that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent, has no stress and is adjacent to another word (words) and is pronounced together with it.

Some forms of clitics:

    • I'm [aɪm], you'll [ju:l], they've [ðeɪv] and others.
  • the article usually merges with the word it defines:
    • an egg [æˈneg], the house [ðəˈhaus]
  • the letter s in the formation of the possessive case is a clitic, not an affix, since it can mark not only one noun, but also a nominal group of words or several nouns combined, for example, with the conjunction 'and':
    • the Queen of England's crown
    • Sue and Tom's car

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