innerveerivad

Innerveerivad is a term used in speculative linguistics to describe a proposed class of internal morphological operations that modify a word from inside its derivational structure. It is not part of mainstream theories and has limited usage in published work.

Origin and usage: The word appears as a neologism in online glossaries and in discussions that toy with nested affixation, but there is no widely accepted definition or standard usage. The concept is generally treated as a theoretical thought experiment rather than a proven mechanism.

Concept and mechanisms: Proponents describe innerveerivad as internal morphemes that attach within a base word to influence its meaning, valency, aspect, or viewpoint. Such operations would be internal to the word’s structure rather than external affixation, potentially creating nested or multi-layered forms. In practice, this could resemble an internal operator that reinterprets argument structure or modifies a participant role without adding new external morphemes.

Example (illustrative): A hypothetical root word V could host an inner morpheme I that, when present, shifts the form’s valency or aspect in tightly controlled contexts, yielding V with a distinct interpretation. Note that these examples are theoretical and not attested in standard typology.

Relation to other concepts: Innerveerivad is discussed in connection with infixation, internal compounding, and word-internal operators. Critics argue the notion risks stretching existing morphology beyond empirical support and may lack robust data to justify its use.

See also: infix, infixation, internal compounding, morphology.