Comprendeva

Comprendeva is a nonstandard verb form that appears in a small number of historical manuscripts and early printings as a variant of the Spanish verb comprender, meaning to understand. It is not recognized as a separate lemma in contemporary dictionaries. In linguistic terms, comprendeva is typically treated as a possible imperfect form, analogous to the standard Spanish imperfect comprendería, but with spelling that reflects archaic or regional scribal conventions rather than a stable modern standard.

Origins and orthography are the main points of interest. The -eva ending is unusual in modern Spanish, and its appearance is usually attributed to scribal variation, phonetic influences, or transcription errors during the copying of texts. Some scholars suggest such forms can arise when scribes attempted to reflect local pronunciation changes or to accommodate idiosyncratic scribal practices of a given manuscript culture.

Attestations are scarce. Surviving examples are mainly found in marginalia, glosses, or early modern printings, and many instances are later thought to be OCR misreads of comprendería or of other regional spellings. Because of its rarity and lack of standardization, compren­deva is typically discussed only in specialized studies of orthographic variation and historical Romance texts.

Modern usage and significance are limited. Today, comprehending correctly in standard Spanish is shown by comprender and its imperfect form comprendía; in Portuguese, the equivalent is compreender with its imperfect compreendia. Comprendeva is generally cited as an example of historical spelling variation rather than as a living form in contemporary language.