Determining the root of a word group

[klitwak]

I am trying to determine the root word for the group of words that relate to "holy." I think there's a different word to call this besides root, though it's not coming to mind right now. In any case, if I wanted to do this with a Hebrew word, it's easy to determine the root consonants. In Greek, however, how do I discover what the root word is, or perhaps the etymology? For example, what is the root word for hAGIAZW, hAGIOS, hAGIASMOS, etc.? Thanks.

Ken Litwak
Azusa Pacific Univ.

[Stephen Hughes]

Have you tried either of these works?

The Complete Vocabulary Guide to the Greek New Testament [Warren C. Trenchard]

Lexical Aids for Students of New Testament Greek [Bruce M. Metzger]

[klitwak]

Thanks for the suggestions. No, I tried the big LSJ and BDAG to no avail, not to mention several web sties that claimed to have Greek roots but they were only for GRE vocabulary study and not much help. I will look at these others.

[Stephen Hughes]

Those two are simple works designed to facilitate vocabulary acquisition .

What are you looking at roots for? Perhaps there are more suitable works than these two.

You can downloaded "Multikey" to type Unicode Greek now.

[Barry Hofstetter]

One way to do this is to eliminate all the inflections and word formation stuff and what's left tends to be the root. If we do that with ἅγιος, κτλ., we get *HAG-. Not sure what you are looking for exactly or why, but there it is.

[Stephen Carlson]

One of the things that the Middle Liddell has but not the Great Scott is roots. If you are interested in what these old lexicographers thought were roots, you can consult the Middle Liddell. https://archive.org/stream/intermediate ... 3/mode/2up

[cwconrad]

One of the things that the Middle Liddell has but not the Great Scott is roots. If you are interested in what these old lexicographers thought were roots, you can consult the Middle Liddell. https://archive.org/stream/intermediate ... 3/mode/2up

But be aware that what you're getting here is what Victorian lexicographers thought were roots. For verbs, at least, Smyth's catalog of irregulars just before the index is especially useful.

[klitwak]

Thanks for the responses. The two works related to vocabulary did not exactly show what I'm after.
Let me try again. By analogy, virtually all the words in the Hebrew Bible that relate to holiness, being holy, consecrating or sanctifying, and even cult prostitute are derivatives of the lemma Qoph-Dalet-Shin.
If I wanted to say the ??/root/cognate/what is the correct term for the word upon which all the others are based, I would say QDSh. I'm sure there's a specific linguistic term for this root, and I've probably seen it but don't remember what it is.

Obviously, Greek and Hebrew don't have the same sort of lemmas, since Greek vowels are integral to the spelling and form of a word, unlike Hebrew. I'm sure there is a special word for what I want, and I would like to know what it is. More importantly, however, if I say that in Hebrew, all the words related to holiness, holy, consecrate, etc. are based upon Qoph-Dalet-Shin, what word would I say that hAGIAZW, hAGIASMOS, hAGIOTHS, etc. are based on or stem from, or are derived from? Or, is this an invalid analogy from Semitic languages? Thanks.

Ken

[Stephen Hughes]

Derived.

The process is referred to as derivational morphology. A verb derived from a noun is called a denominal. Dealing with the forms of a verb is conjugation. Dealing with the forms of a noun, adjective or participle is declension. Identifying the part of speech and the dictionary form of the word is parsing.

[Stephen Hughes]

In real language, words come in families. Each member plays as different syntactic role.

ἁγιάζω is a causal verb
ἁγιασμόςis a noun describing a n action
ἅγιος is an adjective
ἁγιότης is an abstract noun describing the quality/state
ἁγιωσύνη is an abstract noun describing the state/quality

For an active knowledge of Greek one learns the family. Knowing the root is a bit theoretical.