Hi, I am currently learning Italian by myself with the help of duolingo. I was wondering if you could explain to me about Italian Clitics? I've tried to google it and stumbled upon several posts, but it's still a mystery to me. Like, what are clitics? When do you use them? How do you use them? Thanks. xx
In Italian, clitics are words used as object pronouns. Depending on their position, we distinguish two types of clitics:
proclitics = the clitic stands alone before a verb (stressed form)
enclitics = the clitic attaches to the preceding verb (unstressed form)
Enclitics attach to gerunds, infinitives, imperatives and (less frequently) past participles, whereas proclitic object pronouns stand alone before the verbs they are the object of. An example would be:
Canto una canzone (I sing a song)
cantala (sing it)cantandola (singing it)cantarla (singing it)la canto (I sing it)
Italian distinguishes between direct (DO) and indirect object (ID) pronouns but, to make things easier and way less complicated, we can divide these pronouns into stressed and unstressed object pronouns.
Stressed object pronouns usually follow the conjugated verb without attaching to it as affixes, and are usually preceded by a variety of prepositions such as di, a, da, in, con etc. that trigger the use of the stressed pronouns.
egli (lui), esso - lui / sé (reflexive)
ella (lei), essa - lei / sé (reflexive)
essi/esse, loro - loro (rare: essi) / sé
amano te (they love you)non è tra di noi (s/he’s not between us)è venuta per te (she came for you)
Unstressed object pronouns always go with a verb, which they can either follow or precede. When they follow the verb (enclitic), they are glued to it as in guardami (look at me), but when they precede it they stand on their own (proclitic).
egli (lui), esso - lo (DO) / gli (IO) / si (reflexive)
ella (lei), essa - la (DO) / le (IO) / si (reflexive)
Bear in mind that we use different 3rd person pronouns based on whether we’re talking about a direct or indirect object. For example
scrivigli una lettera (write him a letter) [IO]gli scrivo una lettera (I’m writing him a letter) [IO]scrivila (write it) [DO]la scrivo (I’m writing it) [DO]
What happens when you join both direct and indirect personal pronouns? Consider the following example:
mi ha mandato la lettera (s/he has sent me the letter)me l’ha mandata (s/he sent it to me)
Here la lettera is the direct object, while mi is the indirect object. In the second sentence la (l’) is the direct object pronoun meaning la lettera, while me is still the indirect object.
When both the direct and the indirect object are present in the same sentence, the indirect object changes form.
io - me lo / me la / me li / me le
tu - te lo / te la / te li / te le
egli (lui), esso - glielo / gliela / glieli / gliele
ella (lei), essa - glielo / gliela / glieli / gliele
noi - ce lo / ce la / ce li / ce le
voi - ve lo / ve la / ve li / ve le
la zia ha regalato un libro a Giulio (the auntie gave Giulio a book)gli ha regalato un libro (s/he gave him a book)gliel’ha regalato sua zia (her auntie gave it to him/her)
I hope this helps, but if you’re still confused feel free to send me another message. Also you can check my personal pronouns tag! :)
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