Morphology Explorer
Explore the word-by-word grammatical analysis of every verse in the Quran. Discover roots, parts of speech, and morphological features.
How to Read Morphology
A brief guide to understanding the word-by-word interlinear display on verse pages.
What is morphology? Morphology is the study of how words are built. In Arabic, most words come from a root of 2-4 letters. By adding prefixes, suffixes, and changing vowels, Arabic creates many words from a single root. Understanding morphology helps you see how Quranic words relate to each other and discover deeper meanings in the text.
What Each Field Means
- Arabic Word
- The word as it appears in the Quranic text, with full diacritical marks (tashkeel).
- Transliteration
- The Arabic word written using English letters so you can see how it sounds, even if you do not read Arabic script.
- Root
- The trilateral (three-letter) or quadrilateral root from which the word is derived. Roots carry the core semantic meaning.
- Lemma
- The dictionary form of the word (base form). For verbs this is the third-person masculine singular past tense.
- POS
- Part of speech — Noun, Verb, or Particle (and their subtypes such as Adjective, Pronoun, Preposition, Conjunction).
- Features
- Morphological features including gender (masculine/feminine), number (singular/dual/plural), person (1st/2nd/3rd), case (nominative/accusative/genitive), state (definite/indefinite), and verb form (I-X).
Example: Word Breakdown
Here is how the word بِسْمِ from the Bismillah (Quran 1:1) is analyzed:
Part of Speech Guide
Click a category to browse all its words by first letter.
Ism — Noun
The broadest category in Arabic grammar. Includes nouns, adjectives, pronouns, demonstratives, and relative nouns. An ism refers to anything that carries meaning independent of time.
Fi'l — Verb
A word that conveys meaning tied to a specific time. Arabic verbs come in three tenses: past (madi), present/future (mudari), and imperative (amr). Verbs are derived from trilateral or quadrilateral roots.
Harf — Particle
A word whose meaning is only complete in relation to other words. Includes conjunctions, interjections, and other functional words that connect or modify nouns and verbs.
Harf Jarr — Preposition
A subset of particles that indicate the relationship between nouns and verbs. Prepositions in Arabic cause the following noun to take the genitive (jarr) case.