LL-L "Grammar" 2008.01.06 (02) [E]

Sun Jan 6 19:53:01 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  06 January 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Marcel Bas <roepstem at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.05 (06) [E]

Hi Reinhard,

You wondered:

I know that not too long ago especially older Americans greatly disliked
"you guys" (and in some varieties even genitive "you guyses"!), found it
disrespectful, especially coming from younger people addressing them.
However, not only does it seem to be more acceptable now but I hear more and
more seniors use it themselves. Might "you guys" make it eventually, and
might it be passed on to other varieties of English?

I have heard it in South Africa, from a native English speaking girl. "What
did you guys do today?", she asked my friend and me. This was in Port
Elizabeth, 1996.

I once heard a calque from "you people" in the language of an Afrikaans
speaker. He told my friend and me: "Julle mense brand die panne." It wasn't
me, who had done the cooking, though!

"Julle mense" to me sounds like an intrusive English-based tautology.
"Julle" already indicates plural, so why add "mense" (= people)? Like "you
people" "julle mense" doesn't sound friendly, either.

Best regards,

Marcel.
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.01.05 (06) [E]

From: R. F. Hahn < sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Lowlanders,

On the topic of pronominal repluralization.......
......Of course, this need for repluralization is not new, at least not in
American English. ....

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

** But is there really a "need"? The fact that English lost distinctions
between singular/ plural, and polite/familiar in the second person suggests
it couldn't be that important - or we'd have kept it!

As an analogy, no Indo-European language I know of has a distinction between
"inclusive" and "exclusive" for 1st P. plural: "We have to go now" could
refer to "All of us here" or "me, and him, and her, but not you".  In many
Pacific languages, including Tok Pisin, this distinction is a grammatical
essential:
"Yumi" or "Yumiolgeta" = "All of us"
"Mipela" = "Us, but not you"
Speakers of such languages couldn't think in any other terms, yet most
Europeans aren't even concious of the distinction.

We know what we mean by context; if we need to to single one person out when
talking to a group, we identify them: "You'll have to practice harder" (to
the group), "and you, Sally, need to work especially hard".

Paul Finlow-Bates

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From: R. F. Hahn < sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Thanks, you guys ;-) !

Paul, I didn't try to claim that there *is* is need. The point I was really
trying to make was that in some quarters the need appears to be felt
*now*and has been for a while. Since currently this repluralization is
gaining
ground in more prestigious (though casual) dialects of American English and
seems to be increasingly acceptable in the influential American media, I was
postulating that there is a chance of it spreading to English in general.
Whether or not everyone initially likes this is another matter.

Yes, on the other hand, many things fall by the wayside, such as dual forms
which in Indo-European are now only found in a few languages (such as in
Sorbian among the Slavic languages).

I am not aware of inclusive versus exclusive "we" ever having been attested
in Indo-European other than in contact languages in which the substratum
languages came with it (such as in Tok Pisin and in Bislama). It is
widespread in other language families and groups such as in some Caucasian
languages (especially Chechen), Austronesian languages, Native American
languages and Dravidian languages.

However, I wonder if, as cultures and social structures change (and
everything inevitably does change) a possible (re-)emerging need for such
distinctions may lead to the (re-)introduction of grammatical distinctions
that are not there at present.  We talk a lot about discarding grammatical
"fluff," but I feel we mustn't discount the possibility of (re-)introducing
it. Quite obviously, in some English varieties a need for pluralizing "you"
has been reality (e.g., "yous," "y'all", "you guys"). If you and I agree
with it is besides the point.

And if you ask if it's *really* needed, well, let me mention that I have
been in situations in which the lack of number clarification of "you" was a
detriment and led to misunderstandings.  I hardly think that all of these
situations were due to my personal bias (having grown up with languages in
which the distinction exists), because they involved such confusion among
monolingual English speakers.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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