noun
- unstressed words or syllables that are closely attached to and pronounced with the following stressed word
Usage: linguistics
Examples
- In English, articles like ‘the’ and ‘a’ often function as proclitics.
- Prepositions such as ‘in’ and ‘on’ are common proclitics in many languages.
- The linguist explained how proclitics differ from independent words.
- French articles like ‘le’ and ‘la’ are typical examples of proclitics.
- Students learned to identify proclitics in their phonology class.
- Proclitics lean forward onto the next word for stress and pronunciation.