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How can a language change from one grammatical type to another over time?

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Three women sit together outdoors, smiling and laughing as they talk, with trees softly blurred in the background. — Language Spoken language is just one type of language, which has been defined in many different ways across history.

Languages undergo grammatical change over time as they acquire or lose specific distinctions, or as the methods used to express syntactic functions evolve. A language may shift from one grammatical type to another by modifying how it conveys deeper syntactic functions—such as subject or object roles—without necessarily altering those underlying functions themselves.1

For example, many modern Indo-European languages transitioned from relying on case endings to utilizing word order and prepositions to express syntactic relationships. This process is often driven by analogy, where speakers regularize irregular forms or patterns based on productive rules within the language.12

Additionally, structural shifts can occur through the development of pidgins and creoles. When a pidgin—a simplified language created for communication between groups—becomes the first language of a new generation, it naturally develops increased complexity to meet the full requirements of human expression. Over time, these languages continue to evolve through the same natural processes of change that affect all living languages.3