youse as singular

[Michael Newman]

I sent this query out earlier but no one seems to have bitten. In case that was because I included it as an afterthought to another topic, and not lack of interest, I'd like to try again. A literary scholar  called Allen Slotkin claims that Stephen Crane was very adept at representing dialect. HIs particular point is on this 1893 novel of Crane's called Maggie, Girl of the Streets, in which the characters use you, yeh (obviously a reduction of you) and yehs, pretty much in what would be classic sociolinguistic variation if it were real. This means that yehs gets used sometimes as a singular. I doubt that this is in fact an accurate description of 1893 NYCE, although I'm aware of y'all getting used as a singular in places. 

Any one have any evidence one way or the other (admitting the difficulty of proven the non-existence of a form)? 


Michael Newman
Associate Professor of Linguistics
Queens College/CUNY
michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu

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