yalls's

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nik Taylor" <fortytwo@...>
>
>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!
Hmm, maybe.  But I wonder if others do that?
So, people who can have both singular and plural "they", what -self/-selves
form would you use in this sentence?

"If anyone calls, tell them to go f**k _________."

I don't think I'm aware of a themself/theirself form.  [Err... ok, Altavista
gives 26353 'themself' references and 1158 'theirself' ones.  But the first
hits that come up are from grammar sites telling you not to use them...]

>> 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"
I think "yalls's" has an 'intensive' meaning that the other mine-equivalent
pronouns don't have.  I would use yalls's as a mine-equivalent though.

     *Muke!