The Pennsylvania German (PG) linguistic situation offers a unique insight into the mechanisms of language change, and specifically of syntactic change. Pennsylvania German consists of two primary varieties, (Plain (PPG) and Nonplain (NPG), a distinction based on the Anabaptist socioreligious affiliations of the former group that has produced two discrete sociolinguistic configurations. This configurational difference has linguistic consequences evident in the contact of both varieties with English. The PPG and NPG communities also differ in the degree to which English is functionally dominant over PG. In general, the PPG community shows stable bilingualism and language maintenance, while the NPG community is characterized by unstable bilingualism and language death. Three processes control the evolution of PPG away from NPG: preservation, convergence (change toward English), and innovation (change away from both NPG and English). These processes are evident in syntactic phenomena. (Author/MSE)