Internal points were introduced in the literature of topological vector spaces to characterize the finest locally convex vector topology. In this manuscript we generalize the concept of internal point in real vector spaces by introducing a type of points, called inner points, that allows us to provide an intrinsic characterization of linear manifolds, which was not possible by using internal points. We also characterize infinite dimensional real vector spaces by means of the inner points of convex sets. Finally, we prove that in convex sets containing internal points, the set of inner points coincides with the one of internal points.

Inner structure appeared in the literature of topological vector spaces as a tool to characterize the extremal structure of convex sets. For instance, in recent years, inner structure has been used to provide a solution to The Faceless Problem and to characterize the finest locally convex vector topology on a real vector space. This manuscript goes one step further by settling the bases for studying the inner structure of non-convex sets. In first place, we observe that the well behaviour of the extremal structure of convex sets with respect to the inner structure does not transport to non-convex sets in the following sense: it has been already proved that if a face of a convex set intersects the inner points, then the face is the whole convex set; however, in the non-convex setting, we find an example of a non-convex set with a proper extremal subset that intersects the inner points. On the opposite, we prove that if a extremal subset of a non-necessarily convex set intersects the affine internal points, then the extremal subset coincides with the whole set. On the other hand, it was proved in the inner structure literature that isomorphisms of vector spaces and translations preserve the sets of inner points and outer points. In this manuscript, we show that in general, affine maps and convex maps do not preserve inner points. Finally, by making use of the inner structure, we find a simple proof of the fact that a convex and absorbing set is a neighborhood of 0 in the finest locally convex vector topology. In fact, we show that in a convex set with internal points, the subset of its inner points coincides with the subset of its internal points, which also coincides with its interior with respect to the finest locally convex vector topology.

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Our rst result says that every real or complex in nite-dimensional normed space has an unbounded absolutely convex and absorbing subset with empty interior. As a consequence, a real normed space is nite-dimensional if and only if every convex subset containing whose linear span is the whole space has non-empty interior. In our second result we prove that every real or complex separable normed space with dimension greater than contains a balanced and absorbing subset with empty interior which is dense in the unit ball. Explicit constructions of these subsets are given.

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