Re: The future of the English second person plural (was Re: A question)

At 20:45 -0700 13.8.1999, Barry Garcia wrote:
>artabanos@mail.utexas.edu writes:
>>There is, of course, the outside chance that people will continue to
>>tolerate the ambiguity of having no plural specific pronoun. I find this
>>unlikely, because everyone I know uses one of the two, and I personally
>>couldn't imagine not seeing a need for one (although I am of course very
>>biased in this respect).
The lack of a sing./plur. distinction in 2nd person pronouns is easily
*the* most odd and confusing feature of English for speakers of other
Germanic languages.  Actually Swedes tend to see it as a lack of a *1st*
person pron., since we are accustomed to using the 2.pl. for polite
address, like in French (though more restricted in use).

>>At any rate, that's situation as I see it.
>I have noticed among my peers that we often say either <y'all> or <you
>guys> when we mean second person plural. I hardly ever use <you> for the
>second person plural because to me it doesnt sound right (even though it's
>correct). When i did my pronoun charts for my conlangs i used <you all>
>instead of just <you> because i noticed in my language classes using <you>
>for the 2nd person plural gets confused with 1st person singular <you>.
>
>Personally, i see <y'all> becomming used much more often. Especially with
>people who come from this area (Monterey), and even the Bay Area. As my
>generation gets older i see <y'all> being used more than <you guys>
Isn't it the case that <you guys> is tainted by the fact that "guy" (a) is
a noun, and (b) is of primarily masculine reference, while these problems
don't attach to "you all"?  When I grasp for a 2.pl. pron. when writing
English I usually use "you all", which might have to do with the fact that
in Swedish _allihop_ "all together -- lit. 'all in a crowd!'" is often used
to clarify that an imperative is directed to several people.  I can also
more easily imagine something like "youl" or "yall" be adopted as a written
form (to begin with surely as an informal phenomenon), than "youguys".

Some disjected reflections:

What's the etymology of <you'uns>, that Tom mentioned.  "You ones?"

What about "you people"?  Is it only a quasi-formal version of "you guys/all"?

I read once that some Brit dialects use "your" as 2.pl., with "you's" and
"your's" as possessives, but that's probably traditional-dialectal, and
dying out?

Is it only I that am surprised that "yous" as a pl. doesn't catch on?



/BP

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  B.Philip Jonsson  <bpj@...> <melroch@...>

        Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
                                            (Tacitus)