Re: CONLANG Digest - 16 Jun 2000 to 17 Jun 2000 (#2000-166)

Muke Tever wrote:
> > I've never heard "y'allselves", tho.  :-)
>
> Because, amazingly, "yourself"/"yourselves" is the only standard second
> person singular/plural distinction. (Someone gave that as proof that 'you'
> is polysemous regarding singular/plural, and not just number-unmarked.)
Exactly why it's kept.  But, that's not proof that it's polysemous.
"Yourself/-selves" is an obvious compound - your self, your selves, if
you have more than one person, than there's more than one self involved!

> I think I use "yalls's" --  "That's yalls's problem".
Interesting.  I only use, and hear, "yalls's" as an equivalent of
_mine_, e.g., "That's not ours, it's yall's's", but I'd usually just say
"it's yall's"

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