unrelated plurals in Arabic

Fri Feb 9 13:38:10 UTC 2001

Classical Arabic has a few plurals unrelated to their singulars.
One has come back to my mind.
(examples in the nominative indefinite)

sing.:    imra:?at(un) "woman"  [stem: mr? (Hans Wehr 1971: 901)]
pl.:        nisa:?(un) "women" [unrelated plural from stem: nsw (Hans Wehr
1971: 963]

This case is not parallel to

sing.: ?insa:n(un) "man/human being" [stem: ?ns (Hans Wehr 1971: 30)]
pl.:     ?una:s(un) "people" [regular broken plural from the same stem]

Jean-Paul G. POTET. B. P. 46. 92114 CLICHY CEDEX. FRANCE.