This appendix contains a summary of general information about enclitics, a table of all enclitics, and a table of enclitics used in the sample sentences for your quick reference.
General Info about Enclitics
An enclitic is a word that must follow a certain word, called a “host”, in a phrase.
In this book, we have made the host bold in the structure equations. See the associated lessons or Appendix L to find out what the hosts of specific structure equations are. Some sentences in this book are single phrases, meaning the enclitics will follow a single word in the sentence. But sometimes there are two or more phrases, and in those cases you need to remember that they go after the host of the phrase that they belong to. The host is often the first word of the phrase, but not always.
Enclitics are either a) enclitic particles or b) ang or ng form personal pronouns (excluding ikaw).
For clarification, the word “enclitic” is both a noun and an adjective, so we call all words that must follow a host “enclitics”, and we call particles that must follow a host “enclitic particles”.
When there are no enclitics, word order is more flexible.
Ex: Nagluto si Maria ng adobo. = Maria cooked adobo.
Ex: Nagluto ng adobo si Maria. = Maria cooked adobo.
Both of these sentences are correct. Remember that the verb is the host in Standard Sentences. Now let’s see what happens when we replace si Maria with siya.
Ex: Nagluto siya ng adobo. = She cooked adobo.
XXX Nagluto ng adobo siya. = Not a valid sentence.
Because it is an ang form personal pronoun, siya is enclitic, so it must go after the host, the verb in this case, and therefore the second sentence is wrong.
When more than one enclitic appears in a phrase, we will call it an “enclitic cluster”. The enclitics in the enclitic cluster are pronounced together with the host with no pauses as if they form a single word.
Ex: Nagluto po ba siya ng adobo? = Did she cook the adobo?
In the example, nagluto po ba siya is pronounced as naglutopobasiya.
Complete List of Enclitics
TypeOrderEncliticsingle syllable personal pronouns1kokamoenclitic particles2napa3man4nga5dinrin6langlamang7naman8dawraw9poho10ba11pala12kaya13muna14tuloy15kasi16yata17sanaremaining personal pronounsng form, kita18niyanaminnatinninyonilakitaang form19akosiyakamitayokayosilaTable 9: The Order of Enclitics in the Enclitic Cluster
You do not need to memorize the whole table; it is just a convenient reference.
Rin and raw are used after words that end in vowels, “w” or “y”; din and daw are used in all other cases. Be aware that sometimes native speakers do not follow that rule. Lamang is the formal version of lang, so they can be used interchangeably. Po and ho both indicate respect. Po is more respectful, so they are not necessarily interchangeable, but they use the same order of appearance. For more information on specific particle meanings and usage, see the lesson on Using Enclitics.
Tips for Remembering the order of Enclitics
I recommend you memorize this order:
Short Personal Pronouns
Enclitic Particles
Ng form Personal Pronouns and Kita
Ang form Personal Pronouns
When you get enough exposure to the language, you will naturally memorize all the personal pronouns and enclitic particles. So, knowing what order they appear in the sentence is useful.
Memorizing the order of the enclitic particles (order 2 thru 17 in the big table) is a bit trickier. We hope that memorizing the shorter list of particles that we use in the sample sentence enclitic clusters will give you enough of a framework so the remaining particles will eventually find their way into the correct locations of your conversation. Short list:
RankEnclitic Particle1napa2nga3dinrin4lang 5naman 6po 7baTable 10: All Particles used in the Sample Sentence Enclitic Clusters
One final tip. With the exception of naman, one-syllable enclitic particles always come before the two syllable ones. That may help you a bit in remembering the order.
Focus Sensitive Enclitic Particles.
Most enclitic particles apply to the entire clause, but din/rin, lang, naman(contrast), which we call “focus sensitive” enclitic particles, do not apply to the focus:
Ex: Nag-aral rin siya ng Tagalog. = She also studied Tagalog. “Also” does not apply to “she” here. For example, this can mean she studied it and listened to it, or she studied Tagalog and French, but it cannot mean that she and her friend studied Tagalog.