y'all redux

[James C Stalker]

Maybe our problem here is not a grammatical one of singularity/plurality,
but a pragmatic one of mutual contextual knowlege and beliefs (a la, Bach
and Harnish).  Southerners (self proclaimed, on this list) deny singularity.
Non-Southerners (apparently, or by long disassociation with native dialect)
claim to hear singularity.  This posting suggests that we are dealing with
expectations (i. e., presuppositions) rather than grammaticality.  For
Southerners, the implicature is always plural.  "Northerners" do not share
the mutual contextual knowledge with "Southerners," therefore interpret the
context grammatically rather than pragmatically.

Jim Stalker

Majors, Tivoli writes:

> I'm from Dallas so I thought I'd weigh in on the whole y'all thing. We used to argue about this in grad school at UT all the time. Generally, it was yankees who would say they heard y'all used in the singular. Us Texans would vehemently deny the possibiility. What I think may be going on is that when we southerners use y'all, it always has a plural intention, but may not seem to to outsiders. So if someone were to say to me "Did y'all enjoy that movie?" I would understand that to be addressed to me, anyone who saw the movie with me, and even anyone loosely affiliated with me. My assumption would not be that they meant me myself alone. In fact, I'd say that meaning is not allowable in my dialect. I can't speak for others, of course, but we Texans were generally in agreement on this point. None of us was from West Texas, but Ft. Worth is just a stone's throw from Dallas, so I'm still a little dubious.
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University