Question

clitic noun We hear clitics every day in sentences like "This'll be fine" and "C'mon over here." There are two kinds of clitics: "enclitics" and "proclitics." An enclitic is a clitic that is associated with the word that comes before it. Contractions, such as the "ve" in "would've" and the "ll" in "it'll," are enclitics. A proclitic is associated with the word that follows it. Proclitics are transcribed into print far less often than enclitics are, but we hear them frequently in speech. For example, the sentence "They love to dance" is typically pronounced with the "to" truncated to a "t" that gets tacked onto the front of "dance." : a word that is treated in pronunciation as forming a part of a neighboring word and that is often unaccented or contracted

Accepted Answer

September 3, 2010 KLIT-ik In "what's happening?" the "s" in "what's" is a clitic.

Word	clitic
Date	September 3, 2010
Type	noun
Syllables	KLIT-ik
Etymology	We hear clitics every day in sentences like "This'll be fine" and "C'mon over here." There are two kinds of clitics: "enclitics" and "proclitics." An enclitic is a clitic that is associated with the word that comes before it. Contractions, such as the "ve" in "would've" and the "ll" in "it'll," are enclitics. A proclitic is associated with the word that follows it. Proclitics are transcribed into print far less often than enclitics are, but we hear them frequently in speech. For example, the sentence "They love to dance" is typically pronounced with the "to" truncated to a "t" that gets tacked onto the front of "dance."
Examples	In "what's happening?" the "s" in "what's" is a clitic.
Definition	: a word that is treated in pronunciation as forming a part of a neighboring word and that is often unaccented or contracted

Word Clitic Hear September Noun Klit Ik Day Sentences