title: How to convert plural nouns into singular nouns
body: <p>In a recent project, I am faced with the task to convert plural nouns into singular forms. I know some POS tagging algortihms and tools that can recognize plural forms of nouns and tag them as 'NNS', but I did not know any algorithm that can cenvert them into singular forms. I have tried stemming, but stemming seems too aggressive to convert the word. It gives something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>parties -&gt; parti
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But what I want is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>fish -&gt; fish
  classes -&gt; class
  parties -&gt; party
  goods -&gt; goods
  cups -&gt; cup
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This seems to be a difficult problem without a huge dictionary with every English word in it. Is there any mature algortihm that can make it? I am also happy to learn if there is any library that can do this especially libraries in Java. Thanks.</p>