Editing Grammatical number (section)

==Geographical distribution==
Obligatory plural marking of all nouns is found throughout the languages of [[Eurasiatic languages|western and northern Eurasia]] and [[Languages of Africa|most parts of Africa]]. The rest of the world's languages present a heterogeneous picture. Optional plural marking is common in [[East Asian languages|Southeast and East Asia]] and [[Australian languages]], and complete lack of plural marking is particularly found in [[Papuan languages|New Guinea]] and Australian languages. In addition to the [[Areal feature|areal correlations]], there also seems to be at least one correlation with [[morphological typology]]: [[isolating languages]] appear to favor no or non-obligatory plural marking. This can be seen particularly in Africa, where optionality or absence of plural marking is found particularly in the isolating languages of West Africa.<ref>{{Citation | last = Good | first = JC | title = Kwa noun | publisher = Buffalo | url = http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcgood/jcgood-KwaNoun.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | chapter = 34 | title = Occurrence of Nominal Plurality | publisher = Wals | chapter-url = http://wals.info/chapter/34}}</ref>