Cliticize

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To attach or fuse a grammatical element that cannot stand alone to an adjacent word, forming a phonologically dependent unit
2. To convert or join a word or morpheme as a clitic by affixing it to a neighboring word that bears stress
3. To incorporate a clitic particle into a larger word or phrase to which it becomes phonetically bound

Etymology: "Cliticize" is a technical coinage from linguistics, built by adding the verb-forming suffix "-ize" to "clitic." The base word "clitic" comes from Greek "klinein," meaning "to lean," and refers to a word-like element that cannot stand alone as a stress unit and leans phonologically onto a neighboring word. English "-ize" comes from Greek "-izein," used to form verbs meaning "to make into" or "to treat in a certain way." To cliticize, then, is to turn a free word into a clitic, or to attach a word to its neighbour so that it loses its independent stress and sometimes its full pronunciation. The English pronoun "'em" in "tell 'em" and the contraction "'s" in "it's" are familiar results of this process. The verb is a specialist term, most used in grammar and phonology, and it simply names the process in plain form.