Possessive form of Y'ALL

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed May 30 13:50:58 UTC 2001


And on a related topic, a ESPN hockey interviewer after last night's
victory by the New Jersey Devils over the Colorado Avalanche in their
Stanley Cup finals game complimented Martin Brodeur, the winning
goalie, about the impressive nature of "you guys's [gaiz at z] defensive
effort".  The French Canadian interviewee, probably used to the full
range of variation in the New York metropolitan area, seemed unfazed
by the construction.

larry

At 12:15 AM -0400 5/24/01, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>I have never heard anyithing but Y'ALL's (as in the example). Most young
>white people in this area are relatively r-ful, but they never say *YOUR ALL
>or *YOUR ALL'S -- any more than YUZ speakers say *YOUR YUZ'S.
>
>In a message dated 5/23/2001 12:25:51 PM, flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU writes:
>
><< For plural
>possessive, would you/you all say "your all's" or "you all's"?  Granted, if
>one is r-less, the production would sound like "y'all's" (as below).  But
>if you're r-ful (as many Southerners and most South Midlanders are), would
>you say "your all's," i.e., is there an underlying /r/ which may or may not
>be pronounced?  An Athens County student of mine insists that she said
>"your all's" both as a child in Mississippi and as an adolescent and adult
>in southern Ohio. >>



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