you guys

[Mai Kuha]

Definitely--that's what I meant. Thanks for the clarification. And, as was
pointed out earlier, this is yesterday's news in the north. Around here,
though (Indiana, supposedly just north of the Hoosier Apex, although the
reality of regional variation is more complex than that, of course) it
hasn't been all that clear to me whether "you guys" or "y'all" is going to
win. I regularly hear students voice the opinion that it's sexist to address
women as "guys".

-Mai

on 4/17/03 8:14 AM, Laurence Horn at laurence.horn at YALE.EDU wrote:

> ...It's not that "you guys"
> conventionally designates women per se but only that it can be
> anaphorically linked to a set of addressees salient in the context.
> It's the loss of the [+ male] feature not the acquisition of a [-
> male] one that's involved.
>
> Larry
>