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Changes to the sounds of a language can lead forms of a word which were previously distinct to become identical in form, causing the loss of a grammatical contrast.

Changes to the meaning or grammatical function of a word form can cause it to compete with, or even displace, other forms in its paradigm.

The loss of inflectional contrasts may be the direct result of changes in a language’s morphology, for example if one form analogically replaces another, or if inflectional material such as an affix is lost.

Changes in the syntax of a language can replace morphological means of expression with syntactic ones – for instance by replacing case forms with prepositions – or render inflectional categories redundant, e.g. by losing agreement rules.

In replacement, forms in a paradigm which were previously distinct are replaced by another form from elsewhere in the paradigm, eliminating the contrast between them.

In neutralisation, forms in a paradigm which were previously distinct are replaced by a single new form, eliminating the contrast between them.

This category contains changes where cells are eliminated from the paradigm, perhaps because their function is taken over by a non-morphological means of expression, such as a new periphrastic construction or a syntactically distinct element like a pronoun or adposition.