you all's

[Beverly Flanigan]

Thanks to you and Mai for the attestations!  But the use of "your allses"
isn't really a matter of redundancy (in the usual sense), is it, but rather
an indication of plural poss. as opposed to the singular implied by 'your'
alone?  As Natalie said, 'your' could certainly be used for group poss.
also, after the group membership had been established; but 'your allses'
(or 'you allses' or 'you alls') would make that specific.  I'll check out
"your guyses" around here.  Any more confirmations?

At 11:04 AM 4/4/00 -0500, you wrote:

>Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>  A third form offered by a student of
>mine is "you allses'," a possessive referring to a non-homogeneous group
>(according to her), as in "Write down you allses' phone numbers" (I'm
>supplying an apostrophe out of writing convention only, of
>course).  Incidentally, she says she would say "your all's" and "your
>allses'," but this seems to strangely mix standard and regional, doesn't
>it?
>
>I have to agree with the student who would say "your all's" and "your
>allses.'"   I don't know whether I would actually say either one although
>it's possible I do without being aware of it, but I know I've heard these
>forms in Mississippi and my ear tells me she's right.  "You all's" without
>the "r" sounds dissonant, incomplete, wrong, makes my skin crawl.  Using
>the possessive form of the pronoun puts it in agreement with the
>possessive form of "all."   I don't think it's a mix of standard and
>regional since the same speakers use "your" when speaking to one
>person.  This is simply an instance of redundancy at work.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/attachments/20000404/725e80bb/attachment.htm>