[EN] We study various weaker versions of metrizability for pseudocompact abelian groups G: singularity (G possesses a compact metrizable subgroup of the form mG, m > 0), almost connectedness (G is metrizable modulo the connected component) and various versions of extremality in the sense of Comfort and co-authors (s-extremal, if G has no proper dense pseudocompact subgroups, r-extremal, if G admits no proper pseudocompact refinement). We introduce also weaklyextremal pseudocompact groups (weakening simultaneously s-extremal and r-extremal). It turns out that this “symmetric” version of ex-tremality has nice properties that restore the symmetry, to a certain extent, in the theory of extremal pseudocompact groups obtaining simpler uniform proofs of most of the known results. We characterize doubly extremal pseudocompact groups within the class of s-extremal pseudocompact groups. We give also a criterion for r-extremality for connected pseudocompact groups.

The first and the third author were partially supported by Research Grant of the Italian MIUR in the framework of the project “Nuove prospettive nella teoria degli anelli, dei moduli e dei gruppi abeliani” 2002. The third author was partially supported by Research Grant of the University of Udine in the framework of the project “Torsione topologica e applicazioni in algebra, analisi e teoria dei numeri”.