A posteriori

INDO-GERMANIC: Also called Indo-Aryan, this is an obsolete term for Indo-European.

INDO-IRANIAN: The branch of Indo-European that includes Persian and Indic.

INDUCTION: The logical assumption or process of assuming that what is true for a single specimen or example is also true for other specimens or examples of the same type. For instance, if a geologist found a type of stone called adamantium, and he discovered that it was very hard and durable, he could assume through induction that other stones of adamantium are also very hard and durable. The danger in such an assertion is the risk of hasty generalization. This process is the opposite of deduction. Induction fashions a large, general rule from a specific example. Deduction determines the truth about specific examples using a large general rule. See deduction, logic, and logical fallacies, and syllogism handouts.

INEXACT RHYME: Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, pararhyme, slant rhyme, near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, or suspended rhyme. The example below comes from William Butler Yeats:

Heart-smitten with emotion I sink down

My heart recovering with covered eyes;
Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
My permanent or impermanent images.

Inexact rhyme has also been used for splendid intentional effect in poems such as Philip Larkins' "Toads" and "Toads Revisited," and has been increasingly popular with postmodern British poets after World War II. Contrast with eye-rhyme, assonance, consonance, and exact rhyme.

INFANT DAMNATION: A rather grim Protestant doctrine associated with Puritan theologian John Calvin. It is closely associated with the doctrines of "Total Depravity," "Original Sin," and "The Elect." The idea of Infant Damnation is that, since all humans suffer from original sin and share in the guilt of their primordial ancestors, Adam and Eve, even newborn infants are evil and wicked rather than truly innocent. Accordingly, all infants and children who die in their youth before achieving the age of reason will face punishment in the afterlife. This contrasts with the Catholic doctrines developed by Saint Augustine, which stated a child that was baptised before the age of reason by having water sprinkled on his or her forehead would receive an invisible mark of salvation, and if the child died before adulthood, he or she would be welcomed into heaven. (Thus, in the medieval poem Pearl, we find the narrator's daughter has died as a toddler, but she is now the Bride of Christ. Likewise, in the Arthurian legends, we read of the giant cannibal that lives on a Swiftian diet of babies, but he insists that each child be baptised before he consumes the babe. Calvin would refute such a soteriology, stressing the child can only be saved by its repentence and understanding of Christ's sacrifice.)

INFIX: While a prefix is a meaningful syllable or collection of syllables inserted before a main word, and a suffix is a meaningful syllable or collection of syllables added to the end of a main word, an infix is a meaningful syllable splitting in half a larger word. For instance, in the word replay, re- is a prefix added to play. In the word singer, -er is a suffix added to sing. In many languages, infixes are actually added in the middle of the word rather than the front or end alone. The act of inserting infixes is called infixation. Infixation is rare in English except for humorous or colloquial effects. See infixation for examples.

INFIXATION: Also called epenthesis, infixation is placing an infix (a new syllable, a word, or similar phonetic addition) in the middle of a larger word. Some languages regularly use infixation as a part of their standard grammar. In English, infixation is often used in colloquialisms or for poetic effect. Shakespeare might write, "A visitating spirit came last night" to highlight the unnatural status of the visit. More prosaically, Ned Flanders from The Simpsons might say, "Gosh-diddly-darn-it, Homer." Catherine Faber responded to an ambiguous question with an ambiguous answer by crying out, "Abso-kind-of-lutely." The resulting word is often a neologism.

INFLECTED: An inflective or inflected language is one like Latin, German, or Anglo-Saxon, in which special endings called declensions appear on the end of noun-stems to indicate case. Contrast with analytic and agglutinative languages.

INFLECTED INFINITIVE: In Old English, an infinitive with declension endings attached and used as a noun--a source of much frustration to graduate students trying to translate Anglo-Saxon texts.

INFLECTION (also spelled inflexion): The alteration of a word to provide additional grammatical information about it--such as a grammatical ending added to a word to mark its case, tense, number, gender, and so on. Inflections of verbs are called conjugations. Inflections of nouns and other parts of speech to show grammatical case are called declensions.