Wordmedially

Wordmedially is an adverb used in linguistics to indicate that a feature occurs inside the interior of a word, rather than at its beginning or end. It describes position within a word and is contrasted with word-initial and word-final, which refer to edges. The term is commonly written word-medially in hyphenated form, though some authors treat it as a single word.

Origin and scope: The word combines "word" with the adverbial form of "medial" (middle). It is most often encountered in discussions of phonology, morphology, and orthography, where analysts distinguish interior positions from word edges. The usage is descriptive, helping to specify where a sound, spelling pattern, or morpheme occurs inside a word rather than at its boundaries.

Examples: In the word structure, the consonant t is wordmedial, lying between the initial s and the final ure. In the word banana, the central vowels appear wordmedially, situated between the initial consonant and the final consonant cluster. Observations about wordmedial position can vary with dialect, phonological analysis, and syllabification.

Notes: Wordmedially is less common in everyday grammar than broader terms like interior or medial, but it appears in specialized linguistic literature. When hyphenation is used, word-medial is the typical adjective, while wordmedially functions as the corresponding adverb.

See also: word-initial, word-medial, word-final, medial, phonology, morphology, orthography.