Absolute and Relative Clitics in Russian Language: Their Definition and Lexicography Description Problems

The purpose of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of absolute and relative clitics within the approach according to which a clitic is a word form unable to constitute a phonetic word on its own, i. e. without a combination with other words. It is argued that when defining absolute/relative sound adjacency, one should consider not only pronunciation of a clitic itself, but also its interaction with the host. For example, in zamër[s‿vj]ed’ ‘froze after all’, the particle is a relative enclitic because of a voiceless [s] in place of the voiced phoneme /z/ at the end of the host, although the particle ved’ is pronounced without any phonetic peculiarities in itself (as [vjɪtj]). Further analysis of stressed and unstressed clitics is required in connection with the degree of their contact; it is necessary to understand whether relative stressed clitics exist in principle and whether, consequently, such a subclass of language units ought to be distinguished. Besides, the absolute/relative nature of clitics should be reflected consistently in the main part of an orthoepic dictionary; for instance, in the dictionary entry on the functional word ved’, voiceless realizations of the voiced consonant phoneme at the end of the previous word form ought to be reflected in order to inform a reader that the variant zamër[s‿vj]ed’ is standard one, unlike zamër[z‿vj]ed’, as it commonly believed.