Re: Kinda NATLANG: English stupidities: "You both"

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> I wonder why *"you many" is not used -)
Probably because "you both" and "you all" can both be rephrased as "both
of you", "all of you", but "many of you" would mean only "a large
portion of you (pl.)", and thus is a different construction.

> or the use of the comparative instead of a superlative with a superlative
> meaning when only two things are compared)
Well, that's a distinction that's fading.  I suspect most people would
consider something like "He wore his better tie" (in a case where he
only owns two) to be pedantic, and would instead say "He worse his best
tie".  However, "He wore one of his better ties" can be used to mean "a
tie that is relatively high quality", while "one of his best ties" would
mean nearly the best tie.

> it's just normal that the pronoun
> system adopts a way to mark duality as well as plurality in all persons,
> despite the initial lack of number of "you".
Incidentally, in my usage, "you" is singular (altho "your" can be used
for any number), "you two" is dual, and "y'all" is three or more.
"Y'all" can NOT be used for two people, altho "you guys" *can* be used
for two or more.

And as "you two" lacks a possessive (well, I sometimes will say "the two
of you's" or "you two's", but those sound awkward) while "y'all" does, I
therefore have "your" which can be one or two (or sometimes more than
two) and "Y'all's" which can only refer to a group of three or more.

So, a chart of my idiolect's second person pronouns:

Case       Singular  Dual                              Plural
Nom/Acc    You       You two                           Y'all
                     <--------------You guys--------------->
Gen        Your      Your (the two of you's/you two's) Y'all's/Your
                     <------------You guys's/Your----------------->
Possesive? Yours     Yours/(You(r) two's)             Y'all's('s)/Yours
                     <----------You(r) guys's/Yours------------------->
Clitic     <---------------------------Ya----------------------------->
For a dual possessive (is that the right term?), I'd be more likely to
rephrase the sentence to avoid the necessity, like, instead of saying
"Is this your two's?", I'd say "Does this belong to you two?"

Meanwhile, "we" and "they" have no such reluctance to be used for
duals.  Probably it's because I still perceive the "all" in "y'all"
(which is also why I find "ya'll" such an annoying spelling)

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