I have the pc gamer GOTY edition and i tried to install it today and it says 'play" under morrowind and install under the other two expansions. I have deleted every trace of morrowind on my computer, all the mod files i had for it (got despreate). I even deleted the Construction set. I don't know how to fix this and was wondering if anyone else has encountered this before.

You have not installed the expansions yet and only Morrowind without the expansions is installed which the play option indicates.
Since you have deleted the construction set you need to reinstall Morrowind from the first disc.

If you want to play Morrowind GOTY version you need to continue to install both Tribunal and Bloodmoon in that order.
Correct installation would be disc1, disc3, disc4 and skip disc2 since that only have TES CS on it.