See the module with the title, “Study a Word Using a Morphology Search”, for another way to do a morphology search.
See the module with the title, “Studying English Words Using the Bible Word Study Guide”, to learn how to use the Bible Word Study to study a word.
The form of a word is called its morphology. Sometimes you need to know whether a word is singular or plural. Or you may need to know whether the tense of a word is past, present, or future. Or you may need to know other different meanings of a word. Identifying these differences is discovering the morphology of a word.
Translator’s Workplace includes Bible resources that contain a reverse interlinear option. The reverse interlinear starts with an English translation of the Bible, and weaves the Hebrew and Greek words under the corresponding English words. This gives people, who have not studied the biblical languages, a way to see what words were used in the original biblical writings. The reverse interlinear option is contained in the following Bibles in Translator’s Workplace:
- English Standard Version
- New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update
- The New International Version
- New Living Translation
- The New Revised Standard Version
- The Lexham English Bible
Example Using the English Standard Version
Here is an example of Romans 12:14 in the “English Standard Version” (ESV) with morphological information below the verse:
If the morphological information is not showing, click the Interlinear icon,
, on the bible’s toolbar to the right of “Display”.
If you move the cursor over the first word in verse 14, “Bless”, the characteristics of this specific verb are shown in the chart below the word. Look at the left column of the chart, with “Surface” at the top and “Strong’s” at the bottom. If any of the following fields are not showing in the left column in your window, right-click on the left column (with “Surface” at the top) and select the fields that do not have a checkmark on the left. Here is the meaning for each label:
- Surface – the English word or text.
- MSS – the original language (Greek, in this case) manuscript as the original authors recorded it.
- MSS Trl, or MSS Transliterated – the original language (Greek, in this case) word with the letters of the word changed to English letters for pronunciation.
- Lemma – the dictionary form (root word) of the manuscript inflected word. The “inflected form” of a word is what we commonly think of as a word. It is a word as it is used in the given context. It is complete with any prefixes and suffixes that may indicate its grammatical function in a given sentence.
- Lemma Trl, or Lemma Transliterated – the transliteration (pronunciation guide) of the lemma in the original language (Greek, in this case).
- Root – a base word from which multiple words may be derived.
- Root Trl, or Root Transliterated – a base word, with the letters of the word changed to English letters for pronunciation.
- Morph – the morphology (form) of the word in the original language (Greek, in this case) lemma. When you move the computer cursor over “VPAM2P”, a small window is opened. In this case, the small window shows that this word is a verb (V) in the present (P) tense. This is an active (A) verb that shows continued or progressive action on the part of the subject. This is an imperative (M) verb used to give orders, commands and instructions. It is also a second (2) person verb. In other words, it is a verb that implies an action toward the person being talked to. Finally, this verb is a plural (P) verb, one that is an action on more than one person.
- Strong’s – the corresponding Strong’s number for the lemma. “Strong” is an abbreviation for the “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible”, or “Strong’s Concordance”. It is a concordance of the King James Bible (KJV). The purpose of Strong's Concordance is to provide an index to the Bible. This allows the reader to find words where they appear in the Bible. This index allows a student of the Bible to re-find a phrase or passage previously studied. It also lets the reader directly compare how the same word may be used elsewhere in the Bible. In this example, the index number for this word in the Strong’s Concordance is “G2127”.
- Louw – the Louw-Nida semantic domain number. The Louw-Nida Greek Lexicon has the title, “Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains."
- Sense – the meaning of the word.
Inline Morphological Information
Another way to see the morphological information is by clicking on “Display”, to the left of the interlinear icon. A dropdown box appears. When you select “inline”, the morphological information will appear below each word, as shown here:
The information in the column includes MSS (Manuscript), Lemma, Morphology, Strong’s Number, and the Louw-Nida semantic domain number. You have the option of selecting which of the options you want to appear below each surface word.
