Y'all and No?

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:16 PM -0600 3/29/01, Mark Odegard wrote:
>To my sensibility, the uncontracted 'you all', as in "I thank you all for
>coming" is common in all forms of AmE (and not just "Suthron". Only when it
>is contracted does it become noticeable.
>
>English, I think, was a little rash in discarding 'ye'.
>
I think you mean "thou"/"thee", the 2d singular.  "Ye" was just the
accusative of "you", the 2d person plural, IIRC.  I'm pretty sure the
2d plural (with case leveled) was used enough as the "polite" 2d
singular that the latter was just swallowed up, except among Quakers
and in archaic diction.

larry