pluralset

Pluralset is a term used in linguistics and computational linguistics to refer to the collection of plural inflected forms associated with a base noun or noun class. In its core sense, a pluralset for a lemma is the set of all plural realizations that the noun can take in a given language, including regular plural suffixation, irregular plurals, and in some languages zero or non-inflected plurals. In multilingual or cross-linguistic work, pluralsets are extended to cover plural forms across languages, modeled as a mapping from lemma and language to a set of plural realizations with their morphological features.

Structure and representation: A pluralset is often stored as a data structure with fields for the lemma, language, and a list of plural_forms. Each entry records the surface form, the accompanying morphosyntactic features (such as number, gender, case), and any notes on irregularity or contextual variation. Example: English: for the lemma "cat" the plural form is "cats" with features plural; for "child" the irregular form "children." Some nouns have the same plural as the singular (sheep), which appears as the form in the pluralset. In Spanish, the lemma "niño" yields "niños" in the plural; the lemma "niña" yields "niñas."

Applications: Pluralsets assist in dictionary compilation, morphological analyzers, natural language generation, and machine translation by providing a centralized representation of allowable plural forms. They support lemmatization, ambiguity resolution, and cross-linguistic comparison of plural paradigms.

Limitations: Plural systems vary widely by language; some nouns participate in dual, paucal, or collective numerals, and context may affect form selection. Maintaining complete pluralsets requires careful linguistic description and regular updates.

See also: morphology, inflection, noun, plural, lemmatization.