The mainstream view is that English "don't" is just a word, the negative form of "do". The apostrophe is a historical accident. The author of this piece gives one argument for this view in the comments, pointing out that "don't" can appear in contexts where "do not" is ungrammatical.
A "clitic" in linguistics refers to an item which is (1) a word in the sense of having its own dictionary entry (which I might call "at the lexical level"), but (2) not a word at the phonological level -- clitics depend for their pronunciation on the word(s) (usually just one word) next to them. So, for example, the 's of "the man's about to jump" is lexically a form of the verb is, but it's been reduced down to zero syllables. The indefinite article (a/an) is another English clitic, and you can observe its pronunciation changing according to the word that follows it in the sentence pair:
1. A cow trampled me.
2. An elephant trampled me.
Traditionally, the definite article ("the") is also clitic, with one pronunciation before consonants and a different pronunciation before vowels. The before-consonants pronunciation is in the process of becoming universal.
Languages differ in whether clitics are written together with the words they attach to phonologically or not. Ancient Greek clitics are traditionally separated with orthographic spaces (we know they're still clitics because they affect the placement of word accents). Latin clitics are written as part of the same word: "felis canisque" (="the cat and the dog", where -que means "and"). English uses both approaches.
SUMMARY, about the specific example you chose: "don't" and the "man's" of "the man's about to jump" are not in the same class, because "don't" is just a word with no internal structure, and that "man's" is two words which are realized in speech as a single syllable. That "man's" might be thought of as a "normal contraction", a term of no meaning that I know, but linguistically is a full word ("man") with a clitic ("'s") attached. However, clitics in general are not necessarily zero syllables long.
Comments
Is a clitic distinct from a normal contraction?
I am not up on linguistics, so I'm just curious, but I'd class "don't" and "man's" as in "the man's about to jump" the same as just contractions.
What's a "normal contraction"?
The mainstream view is that English "don't" is just a word, the negative form of "do". The apostrophe is a historical accident. The author of this piece gives one argument for this view in the comments, pointing out that "don't" can appear in contexts where "do not" is ungrammatical.
A "clitic" in linguistics refers to an item which is (1) a word in the sense of having its own dictionary entry (which I might call "at the lexical level"), but (2) not a word at the phonological level -- clitics depend for their pronunciation on the word(s) (usually just one word) next to them. So, for example, the 's of "the man's about to jump" is lexically a form of the verb is, but it's been reduced down to zero syllables. The indefinite article (a/an) is another English clitic, and you can observe its pronunciation changing according to the word that follows it in the sentence pair:
1. A cow trampled me.
2. An elephant trampled me.
Traditionally, the definite article ("the") is also clitic, with one pronunciation before consonants and a different pronunciation before vowels. The before-consonants pronunciation is in the process of becoming universal.
Languages differ in whether clitics are written together with the words they attach to phonologically or not. Ancient Greek clitics are traditionally separated with orthographic spaces (we know they're still clitics because they affect the placement of word accents). Latin clitics are written as part of the same word: "felis canisque" (="the cat and the dog", where -que means "and"). English uses both approaches.
SUMMARY, about the specific example you chose: "don't" and the "man's" of "the man's about to jump" are not in the same class, because "don't" is just a word with no internal structure, and that "man's" is two words which are realized in speech as a single syllable. That "man's" might be thought of as a "normal contraction", a term of no meaning that I know, but linguistically is a full word ("man") with a clitic ("'s") attached. However, clitics in general are not necessarily zero syllables long.