Mesóclise (Pronoun Inside the Verb)

Mesóclise is the uniquely Iberian pattern of placing a clitic pronoun inside a verb form, between the stem and the tense ending. It applies only to the future indicative and the conditional, and only when no próclise trigger is present in the clause. Vê-lo-ei. Dir-lhe-ia. Far-se-á. For a learner, mesóclise feels alien and ornamental — nothing in English, French, Italian, or even Brazilian Portuguese resembles it — and it's one of the clearest markers of careful, formal European Portuguese. On this page we lay out when it applies, when it doesn't, and what it sounds like in real use. For the step-by-step rules of how to actually build these forms, see Forming Mesóclise.

What mesóclise looks like

Take the future-tense verb verei ("I will see"). It is composed of the infinitive stem ver + the future ending -ei. To place a clitic pronoun, you insert it between the two:

Stem	Clitic	Ending	Full form
ver-	-lo-	-ei	vê-lo-ei
dir-	-lhe-	-ei	dir-lhe-ei
far-	-se-	-á	far-se-á
dar-	-nos-	-iam	dar-nos-iam

The pronoun is flanked on both sides by hyphens, giving the verb a distinctive tripartite shape. Orthographically this is always: stem + hyphen + clitic + hyphen + ending. The pronoun keeps its phonological adaptations (e.g., o → lo after -r), identical to how it would behave in ênclise with the infinitive.

The scope: only two tenses

Mesóclise is possible in exactly two tenses, and nowhere else:

• Future indicative (verei, verás, verá, veremos, vereis, verão): vê-lo-ei, vê-lo-ás, vê-lo-á, vê-lo-emos, vê-lo-eis, vê-lo-ão.
• Conditional (also called "future of the past": veria, verias, veria, veríamos, veríeis, veriam): vê-lo-ia, vê-lo-ias, vê-lo-ia, vê-lo-íamos, vê-lo-íeis, vê-lo-iam.

No other tense takes mesóclise. Not the present. Not the preterite. Not the imperfect. Not the subjunctive. The reason is historical: the Portuguese future and conditional are descended from a Latin periphrastic construction (videre habeo → ver + hei → verei), and the old boundary between the infinitive and the auxiliary still allows a clitic to slip between them. In every other tense, the tense marker is fused so tightly with the stem that nothing can be inserted.

The condition: no próclise trigger in the clause

Mesóclise is the default for future and conditional — but only when there's no próclise trigger. The moment a trigger appears (negation, subordinator, interrogative, proclitic adverb, etc.), mesóclise is replaced by próclise.

This is an important mental model: mesóclise is the "quiet" form. If the clause has any element that would normally pull the pronoun forward in other tenses, that same element pulls the pronoun all the way to the front, and mesóclise is not used.

Decision tree for future/conditional clitic placement: (1) Is there a próclise trigger in the clause? YES → use próclise (pronoun before the verb). NO → use mesóclise (pronoun inside the verb). Ênclise is never used in formal EP future/conditional.

Why mesóclise, not ênclise?

A reasonable question: if ênclise is the default everywhere else, why doesn't the future and conditional just take ênclise — verei-o, veria-te?

The answer is historical. The Portuguese future verei is literally descended from ver + hei (infinitive + have), and the pronoun, in the medieval period, could legitimately sit between the two components of this compound: ver + o + hei → vê-lo-hei → modern vê-lo-ei. Ênclise with the pronoun after the full form (verei-o) was blocked by older grammar and has remained stigmatised. In modern European Portuguese, verei-o, veria-te are considered ungrammatical in careful writing and speech — they are not even an option.

There is a widely used way to express future meaning without mesóclise: use the periphrastic construction ir + infinitive (vou ver, vou comprar). Because the clitic can attach to the infinitive in ênclise, you get vou vê-lo, vou comprá-la — and this sounds much more colloquial than mesóclise. Most speech uses this periphrasis. Mesóclise survives chiefly in writing and in more deliberate spoken registers.

Register: where mesóclise lives

Mesóclise is not dead, but it is limited in register. Here is where you encounter it, roughly ranked from most to least common:

1. Legal, administrative, and formal journalistic writing — laws, contracts, newspaper editorials, official communications.
2. Literary prose and poetry — especially older literature but also contemporary authors who write in a deliberate style.
3. Formal speech — political speeches, academic lectures, news anchors, ceremonial contexts.
4. Everyday writing in Portugal — a small number of set phrases and polite formulas.
5. Everyday speech — almost absent; replaced by the ir + infinitive periphrasis.

Mesóclise marks register. Using it casually in a text message to a friend would sound absurdly pompous. Using it in a job application cover letter or in a formal email sounds educated and careful. A native Portuguese reader will immediately sense the level of formality from whether you use mesóclise or the periphrastic ir + infinitive.

Set phrases and fossils

A handful of mesoclitic phrases have survived into everyday speech as fixed expressions. These are worth recognising even if you never use them freely.

These phrases pattern like frozen idioms: even speakers who would normally say vamos encontrar-nos will say encontrar-nos-emos in the right formal context.

Mesóclise with different kinds of pronouns

Mesóclise works with every kind of clitic pronoun that appears in ênclise: direct objects, indirect objects, reflexives, and combined forms.

Direct-object pronouns

Indirect-object pronouns

Reflexive pronouns

Combined pronouns (indirect + direct)

When both types appear, they fuse into a single clitic (mo, to, lho, no-lo, vo-lo, lho) and are inserted as a unit:

These combined-pronoun mesoclitic forms are the most elaborate verb forms in the language, and you will meet them mainly in legal and literary texts.

What mesóclise competes with in everyday speech

In real conversation, speakers rarely produce mesoclitic forms. They use one of three substitutes:

(1) Periphrastic future: ir + infinitive

This replaces chamá-lo-ei and ver-nos-emos in spoken EP.

(2) Present indicative with future meaning

(3) The conditional → the imperfect subjunctive + indicative alternation

For conditional meanings, speakers often use the imperfect indicative (especially in a casual register) or restructure the sentence:

(4) Moving the trigger in to force próclise

If a speaker has a genuinely future statement but doesn't want to use mesóclise, they can add a trigger that forces próclise — certamente, com certeza, seguramente, talvez — and drop mesóclise in favour of the simple future with próclise.

The fate of mesóclise: stable in writing, fading in speech

Mesóclise is not disappearing — it is stable in formal registers — but it is receding from casual speech. A few data points:

• In Portugal, children do produce mesoclitic forms in appropriate contexts by the time they are in school. They just produce them more rarely than adults did a generation ago.
• In Brazil, mesóclise is almost entirely restricted to legal and literary writing. In spoken Brazilian Portuguese, it essentially doesn't exist — speakers use ênclise on the future (verei-o, if they don't periphrase it away) in a way that European speakers would reject.
• In published writing in Portugal — news articles, novels, academic papers, legal texts — mesóclise is unambiguously standard. A Portuguese writer who avoided mesóclise in a formal piece of prose would sound sloppy.

For a learner, the practical takeaway is: know mesóclise well enough to recognise it and produce it when needed, but don't over-rely on it in conversation. If a Portuguese speaker is speaking casually, you will rarely hear mesoclitic forms, and producing too many of them in casual chat will make you sound odd. Reserve mesóclise for formal writing and polished speech.

Reading mesóclise in the wild

A short list of common contexts where you will encounter mesóclise and should be ready to parse it:

• Legal documents: "O contratante reservar-se-á o direito de..."
• News headlines: "O Presidente dir-lhes-á..."
• Academic prose: "Considerar-se-ão as seguintes hipóteses..."
• Political speeches: "Faremos tudo o que for preciso... Honrar-se-á o compromisso..."
• Literary prose: "Encontrar-nos-íamos sempre junto à fonte, como se fosse um ritual."
• Funeral orations, memorials: "Recordá-lo-emos com imenso carinho."

Mesóclise with negation — does not exist (important!)

Students sometimes try to combine não with mesóclise: não vê-lo-ei. This is wrong. Não is a próclise trigger. It forces the pronoun in front of the verb, and the mesoclitic structure collapses.

Where English speakers stumble

The core conceptual hurdle for English speakers is that nothing in English fuses with nothing like this. We don't insert pronouns inside verb forms. We don't have tense markers that fuse across word boundaries. The closest thing — English I'll see him — has the pronoun comfortably after the verb, and there's nowhere for it to go inside. Portuguese is unusual in Romance in even preserving this construction; Spanish lost the ability to insert clitics in the future and conditional centuries ago.

Because of this, English speakers tend to:

1. Over-use periphrastic future with ir + infinitive — which is fine for speech but bland in writing.
2. Produce verei-o, veria-te by analogy to ênclise in other tenses — ungrammatical.
3. Forget that não, quando, que, quem, etc., cancel mesóclise and force próclise.

The way through is to memorise three simple rules: (a) mesóclise applies only to future and conditional; (b) no trigger → mesóclise; (c) trigger → próclise. Then learn the formation rules on Forming Mesóclise.

Comparison table — future / conditional placement under different conditions

Clause condition	Future placement	Conditional placement
No trigger	Mesóclise — vê-lo-ei	Mesóclise — vê-lo-ia
After não	Próclise — não o verei	Próclise — não o veria
After que	Próclise — ...que o verá	Próclise — ...que o veria
After quem	Próclise — quem o verá?	Próclise — quem o veria?
After já	Próclise — já o verei	Próclise — já o veria
After talvez	Próclise — talvez o veja (present subjunctive)	Próclise — talvez o visse (imperfect subjunctive)

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: ênclise on the future or conditional

Mistake 2: mesóclise after a trigger

Mistake 3: mesóclise in the wrong tense

Mistake 4: forgetting the phonological adaptation of the pronoun

The pronoun o/a/os/as becomes lo/la/los/las when inserted after a stem ending in -r (which is almost always true in mesóclise, since the stem IS the infinitive minus the final -r). The stem also takes the appropriate accent.

Mistake 5: using mesóclise in speech when it feels out of place

Mistake 6: writing the hyphens in the wrong places

Mesóclise has two hyphens, flanking the pronoun. One before and one after. Dropping either, or placing them wrongly, is a spelling error.

Key Takeaways

• Mesóclise places the clitic pronoun between the verb stem and the tense ending. It only applies to future indicative and conditional tenses.
• The structure is stem + hyphen + clitic + hyphen + ending, always with two hyphens.
• It is the default placement for future/conditional only when no próclise trigger is present. Any trigger (negation, subordinator, interrogative, proclitic adverb, etc.) replaces it with próclise.
• Ênclise is not an option on future/conditional verbs in formal EP. Forms like verei-o, veria-te are ungrammatical.
• In casual speech, mesóclise is typically avoided in favour of the periphrastic future (vou ver) or the present with future meaning (amanhã vejo). It survives strongly in formal writing, legal and administrative language, literature, and polished speech.
• Recognising mesóclise is as important as producing it — you will encounter it constantly in Portuguese newspapers, novels, and formal texts.
• For the step-by-step mechanics of building mesoclitic forms (stem contractions, accent placement, pronoun transformations), see Forming Mesóclise.