Each function also takes an optional second parameter, specifying the required grammatical number of the word. The plural inflection is only performed if the specified number is not 1. If it is called with an argument, it invokes classical mode only if that argument evaluates to true. If the argument is false, classical mode is switched off. Hence, whereas dogma is normally inflected to dogmas , if classical mode is active it becomes dogmata .
Inequality is indicated by returning an empty string.
Conclusion Capturing the English plural inflection in reliable algorithms proves to be a feasible, if challenging, task. It is also possible to make use of the pluralization algorithms to efficiently detect pairs of words which differ only in grammatical number.