singularization

Singularization is the process of forming or obtaining a singular form from a word that has a plural form, typically in the context of nouns. In linguistics, it is regarded as the counterpart to pluralization and concerns the ways in which language marks or derives singular number. Most languages establish distinct singular and plural forms for nouns, adjectives, and sometimes verbs, though some items are invariant or use alternative strategies such as mass or collective references.

In practical terms, singularization is important for language analysis and processing. In natural language processing and text normalization, it involves mapping inflected or plural forms to a canonical singular lemma. Examples include regular conversions like cats to cat, dogs to dog, and irregular cases such as geese to goose, children to child, and mice to mouse. Handling irregular plurals often requires language-specific rules or statistical models, and attention must be given to nouns that are the same in singular and plural (e.g., sheep) or that display context-dependent plurality.

Beyond linguistics, the term singularization is not widely used as a technical term in other disciplines. In mathematics and related fields, discussions about singularities or introducing singularities in geometric objects more typically use terms such as desingularization, degeneration, or singular limits rather than singularization.

See also: singular, pluralization, lemmatization, morphology.