Arabic-L:LING:Al-imra'a query

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Tue 03 Feb  2004
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Al-imra'a query

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1)
Date: 03 Feb 2004
From:moderator
Subject:Al-imra'a query

I have been asked the status of the form al-imra'a.  I was taught that
the form imra'a 'woman' was for indefinite only, and that with the
definite article the form should be al-mar'a.  However, I did a search
of a newspaper corpus and found several examples of al-imra'a, as well
as several other examples of mar'a without the article.  I did a google
search and came up with 179 examples of al-imra'a (as compared with
about 356,000 examples of al-mar'a).
Are there any native speakers out there who have a feel for these
forms?  If they are not errors, why are they seldom used?  If they are
errors, why do you think they are used at all?
Thanks,
Dil

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End of Arabic-L:  03 Feb  2004