Apart from the dialect form used in the Southern US, «y’all,» has English ever had a plural «you»? If not, how does English get around using this form?
asked Apr 22, 2011 at 15:03
8
You and ye used to be the plural forms of the second person pronoun. You was the accusative form, and ye was the nominative form.
Because of this, you still conjugates verbs in the plural form even when it is singular; that is, you are is correct even if you is only referring to one person.
Thee and thou used to be the singular forms. Thou was the nominative form, and thee was the accusative form. Thy and thine were the genetive forms, and their use followed the same rules as a and an.
answered Apr 22, 2011 at 15:14
Peter OlsonPeter Olson
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7
You is the plural.
Thou is the singular form of you.
Thou has now disappeared from common use and is used only to address God.
The process resulting in the use of the singular pronoun to express intimacy and the plural pronoun to mark respect or social distance is termed T-V_distinction, after the Latin tu and vos and is found is many languages, especially of the Proto Indo European family tree.
See for instance, in addition to the Latin form above:
- French: tu => vous
- German: du => ihr (2nd person plural) or Sie (3rd person plural)
- Mandarin 你 (nǐ, you informal) => 您 (nín, you respectful) compared to (nǐmen, 你们, you to several persons).
Even some languages that seem not to comply exactly (because they don’t seem to use the 2nd-person plural) actually hide a form a compliance.
- Spanish: tu => vos (obsolete, 2nd-person plural archaic form).
- Italian used to use voi (2nd person plural).
- The você of Portuguese is a contraction of vossa mercê (your mercy) which is an implicit 2nd person plural.
All in all, English has pushed T-V distinction so far that thou is not used anymore in common speak.
answered Apr 22, 2011 at 15:11
Alain Pannetier ΦAlain Pannetier Φ
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5
‘You» was originally plural, «thou» was the singular.
There was a shift to using the plural as the polite form, eg. monarchs say ‘we’ for I, so gradually the ‘you’ plural began to be used by everybody.
Exceptions are/were Quakers who stuck to the thee/thou since they didn’t recognise anyone as better than each other and people from Yorkshire who didn’t recognise anyone as better than them.
answered Apr 22, 2011 at 15:09
mgbmgb
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In middle English, there were informal terms for «you» singular (thou/thee) and informal «you» plural (ye/you). So for awhile there, in Chaucerian times, you could make the distinction grammatically. The formal 2nd person pronoun was «you» for both singular and plural.
In the transition to modern English, for politeness’ sake or simplicity, we got rid of the formal/informal inflections and just went with the formal pronouns. It really isn’t a problem because context and verb endings will almost always make clear whether singular or plural is meant (there’s no grammatical need for a «y’all»).
Note that in other languages like Japanese, we see that pronouns can often be dispensed with entirely.
answered Apr 22, 2011 at 15:17
The RavenThe Raven
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As others have said, Thee and Thou were the informal terms. But in a bizarre switch, Thee and Thou are now considered more formal. I see two forces at work to bring this about.
First, early English bibles (at least the King James edition) used Thee and Thou when addressing God, to emphasise a personal, informal relationship with God. Nowadays, the relationship to God is considered more formal, and the old bibles themselves are considered formal, so when people today use Thee and Thou to refer to God, it feels to be a formalism.
Second, thee and thou are used in Shakespearean writing. People have a respect for Shakespeare, and afford a certain formalism to all his writing (even the parts that are designed to be informal). So there again, thee and thou seem Shakespearean and therefore more formal.
So now it’s switched, with thee and thou feeling more formal, and you seeming less formal.
answered Apr 22, 2011 at 22:19
1
There is no difference between you (singular) and you (plural) when it comes to tenses:
Present Simple:
- You are a good friend.
- You are very good friends.(plural)
Past Simple:
- You were a fit guy 2 years ago.
- You were very fit 2 years ago.(plural)
Future Simple
- You will call me tomorrow.(singular or plural depending on the context)
So, you use them in the same way, but the only way to understand if it’s plural or singular is context.
I hope this helps 🙂
Read more:
List of Words Without Plural Form (Uncountable Nouns)
Collective Nouns
Is there plural for “Staff”?
posted 11 years ago
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Number of slices to send:
Optional ‘thank-you’ note:
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Ok, I was lost for words the other day when I read my youngest daughter’s resignation letter (moving on to better grazing).
Near the end of it she wrote «I would like to thank
use
all for your guidance and friendship»
I took her to task (although I already knew what was coming).
What do you mean by this word
use
in this sentence.
Her reply was that this was
use
as in «more than one of you».
I pointed out that in the English language we do not have a plural version of the word
you
. Also, the word
use
means to make something do something like «I
use
a knife to cut my food.»
I further explained that the word
yous
is a slang term and not in the English dictionary — so should not be used in a formal letter (as she did).
She laughed about it and said that this is how they always spelt the word and that I knew fine what it meant.
Total confusion all over my face.
We sat and had a bit of ribaldry concerning the fact that in Aberdeen, having a plural term fo the word
you
has been going on for some years. I pointed out that it must be in the last ten years because myself and my younger siblings do not use that word.
Then I pointed out that the spelling would have to be a derivative of the word
you
so it would most likely be spelt
yous
In my region of Scotland, it could have come about in a round-about way because when I was a nipper in Aberdeen, an adult addressing a group of children was
you eens
(you ones). Kids hearing this would maybe shorten that down to yous (what I am dealing with here).
Looking up
yous
in Google it can be seen that it’s use is dotted around the world and it is used in the manner I have explained, but is more than often used as a manner of addressing a group. My daughters also use it when relaying information or commands. It is definately part of every day speech in the younger generation here (as my daughters clearly demonstrated).
Be aware that we used to have a plural version of the word you in old English (ye), but that was slowly removed over three hundred years ago. The latin based languages (such as Spanish and Italian) have plural terms for
you
.
So three hundred years later my daughters have gone full circle. 
and if you saw what they text on their mobiles phones you could easily believe that Ye Olde English has made a comeback.
I was just wondering if there has ever existed a form of the plural you in English? Even in Old English?
Before we go any further, I know it’s already been said, but what you’re asking for is not Old English. Thou witest (know) not what Old English is. The tongue that I’m typing thee in is Early Modern English, and wittedest not that but that’s ok, ’tis a common mistake: Þæt ne bið hit, þis bið eald ænȝlisc. Hƿȳ belīefaþ ȝē þæt nīƿe ǣrænȝlisc bið eald ænȝlisc? [Thæt ne bith hit, this bith eald ænglisc. Hwȳ belīefath gē thæt nīwe ǣrænglisc bith eald ænglisc?] (That’s not it, this is old English. Why believe ye that Early Modern English is Old English?) Now THAT was some good Old English (pardon the pun). And like Toadie said, most of us wouldn’t be able to understand it. So now you know what Old English looks like! You should research it; it’s really interesting to see where a language comes from.
Just as thee= you; thy=your is there any pronoun in Old English for «you» plural or any alternative for how they say in some parts of the USA «you guys»?
Ok, two things here. First off, for us that speak Modern English, you is singular and then there are two many ways to say you plural, so I’ll use my dialect’s version y’all (to clearly show plurality). How it works: thou (thou knowest/you know); thee (I see thee, I gave thee the ball/I see you, I gave you the ball), thy/thine(thy book, thine apple, that book’s thine/your book, your apple, that book’s yours) [notice that like we have a/an, my/mine, and thy/thine worked the same way in EME.] And now for your question: the plural of thou or what would be plural you was ye. How that works: ye (ye know/y’all know); you (I see you, I gave you the ball/I see y’all, I gave y’all the ball), your/yours (your book, your apple, that book’s yours/your book, your apple, that book’s yours) [in this case pretty much like fully modern English, except that it was never for singular, but a little more on that keep readin’.]
Now, that we got thru all that, there’s your answer: ye was the plural of thou. But no, you never had a plural. Here’s the truth, that’s a very conservative look at the English language, the truth is that even during the time the King Jame Bible was wrote, the language was still in a state of change. If you look at Shakespeare’s works, you can see that in one sentence he may use thou and then you in the exact same sentence. Now, you, if I remember right, somehow do to the influence of French, got associated with vous. Probably because the ou in you and vous (s silent) in both is pronounced more or less the same (My guess is that that’s why it’s spelled with ou in the first place). Now vous in French is formal (or respectful) singular and all around plural. Being that it had this double purpose that is the most likely candidate for you becoming formal singular and then the all around plural, and I believe ye didn’t go down without a fight and continued on as the plural for a while even surviving in some Irish dialects (could be wrong). Well, as we all know, you replaced everything, well I hope that help clear that one up. Oh and because tu in French is informal, it’s probably more likely that thou also got associated with that and so was relegated to informal, with family, and with anger.
…Also if anyone knows is «thee/thy» and «thou/thine» the same, or is one formal and the other informal? Sorry if it’s a little confusing but after studying other languages, I would like to know that English has an equivalent option to express oneself without sounding uneducated using «you guys». Thanks!
Basically, at one time, if it isn’t already clear, after thou/ye had lost there original values, you became formal and thou informal.
I hope that answers all thy questions. And if I have confused thee any, just let me know and I’ll clear up anything that thou need (subjunctive form, not a typo).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
«You» and «Your» are not to be confused with U, Ewe, Yew, or Ure.
In Modern English, you is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most[citation needed] modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers.
History
You comes from the Proto-Germanic demonstrative base *juz-, *iwwiz from Proto-Indo-European *yu— (second-person plural pronoun).[1] Old English had singular, dual, and plural second-person pronouns. The dual form was lost by the twelfth century,[2]: 117 and the singular form was lost by the early 1600s.[3] The development is shown in the following table.[2]: 117, 120, 121
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OE | ME | Mod | OE | ME | Mod | OE | ME | Mod | |
| Nominative | þu | þu | ġit | ġe | ȝē | you | |||
| Accusative | þe | þē | inc | ēow | ȝou | ||||
| Dative | |||||||||
| Genitive | þīn | þī(n) | incer | ēower | ȝour(es) | your(s) |
Early Modern English distinguished between the plural ye and the singular thou. As in many other European languages, English at the time had a T–V distinction, which made the plural forms more respectful and deferential; they were used to address strangers and social superiors.[3] This distinction ultimately led to familiar thou becoming obsolete in modern English, although it persists in some English dialects.
Yourself had developed by the early 14th century, with the plural yourselves attested from 1520.[4]
Morphology
In Standard Modern English, you has five shapes representing six distinct word forms:[5]
- you: the nominative (subjective) and accusative (objective or oblique case[6]: 146 ) forms
- your: the dependent genitive (possessive) form
- yours: independent genitive (possessive) form
- yourselves: the plural reflexive form
- yourself: the singular reflexive form
Plural forms from other varieties
Although there is some dialectal retention of the original plural ye and the original singular thou, most English-speaking groups have lost the original forms. Because of the loss of the original singular-plural distinction, many English dialects belonging to this group have innovated new plural forms of the second person pronoun. Examples of such pronouns sometimes seen and heard include:
- y’all, or you all – southern United States,[7] African-American Vernacular English, the Abaco Islands,[8] St. Helena[8] and Tristan da Cunha.[8] Y’all however, is also occasionally used for the second-person singular in the North American varieties.
- you guys [ju gajz~juɣajz] – United States,[9] particularly in the Midwest, Northeast, South Florida and West Coast; Canada, Australia. Gendered usage varies; for mixed groups, «you guys» is nearly always used. For groups consisting of only women, forms like «you girls» or «you gals» might appear instead, though «you guys» is sometimes used for a group of only women as well.
- you lot – United Kingdom,[10] Palmerston Island,[11] Australia
- you mob – Australia[12]
- you-all, all-you – Caribbean English,[13] Saba[11]
- a(ll)-yo-dis – Guyana[13]
- allyuh – Trinidad and Tobago[14]
- among(st)-you – Carriacou, Grenada, Guyana,[13] Utila[11]
- wunna – Barbados[13]
- yinna – Bahamas[13]
- unu/oona – Jamaica, Belize, Cayman Islands, Barbados,[13] San Salvador Island[8]
- yous(e) – Ireland,[15] Tyneside,[16] Merseyside,[17] Central Scotland,[18] Australia,[19] Falkland Islands,[8] New Zealand,[11] Philadelphia,[20] parts of the Midwestern US,[21] Cape Breton and rural Canada[citation needed]
- yous(e) guys – in the United States, particularly in New York City region, Philadelphia, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan;[citation needed]
- you-uns, or yinz – Western Pennsylvania, the Ozarks, the Appalachians[22]
- ye, yee, yees, yiz – Ireland,[23] Tyneside,[24] Newfoundland and Labrador[11]
Semantics
You prototypically refers to the addressee along with zero or more other persons, excluding the speaker. You is also used to refer to personified things (e.g., why won’t you start? addressed to a car).[25] You is always definite even when it is not specific.
Semantically, you is both singular and plural, though syntactically it is always plural: it always takes a verb form that originally marked the word as plural, (i.e. you are, in common with we are and they are).
Third person usage
You is used to refer to an indeterminate person, as a more common alternative to the very formal indefinite pronoun one.[26] Though this may be semantically third person, for agreement purposes, you is always second person.
- Example: «One should drink water frequently» or «You should drink water frequently».
Syntax
Agreement
You always triggers plural verb agreement, even when it is semantically singular.
Functions
You can appear as a subject, object, determiner or predicative complement.[5] The reflexive form also appears as an adjunct. You occasionally appears as a modifier in a noun phrase.
- Subject: You’re there; your being there; you paid for yourself to be there.
- Object: I saw you; I introduced her to you; You saw yourself.
- Predicative complement: The only person there was you.
- Dependent determiner: I met your friend.
- Independent determiner: This is yours.
- Adjunct: You did it yourself.
- Modifier: (no known examples)
Dependents
Pronouns rarely take dependents, but it is possible for you to have many of the same kind of dependents as other noun phrases.
- Relative clause modifier: you who believe
- Determiner: the real you; *the you
- Adjective phrase modifier: the real you; *real you
- Adverb phrase external modifier: Not even you
Pronunciation
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the following pronunciations are used:
| Form | Plain | Unstressed | Recording |
|---|---|---|---|
| you | (UK) /juː/
(US) /jə/ |
/ju/
/jə/ |
female speaker with US accent |
| your | (UK) /jɔː/
(US) /jɔr/ |
/jʊə/
/jʊ(ə)r/ |
female speaker with US accent |
| yours | (UK) /jɔːz/
(US) /jɔrz/ |
/jʊəz/
/jʊ(ə)rz/ |
female speaker with US accent |
| yourselves | (UK) /jɔːˈsɛlvz/, /jʊəˈsɛlvz/
(US) /jɔrˈsɛlvz/, /jʊrˈsɛlvz/ |
/jəˈsɛlvz/
/jərˈsɛlvz/ |
|
| yourself | (UK) /jɔːˈsɛlf/, /jʊəˈsɛlf/
(US) /jɔrˈsɛlf/, /jʊrˈsɛlf/ |
/jəˈsɛlf/
/jərˈsɛlf/ |
female speaker with US accent |
See also
- Generic you
- English personal pronouns
- Thou
- Y’all
- Yinz
References
- ^ «Origin and meaning of it». Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2021-03-20.
- ^ a b Blake, Norman, ed. (1992). The Cambridge history of the English Language: Volume II 1066–1476. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b «thee». Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
- ^ «yourselves». Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
- ^ a b Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Lass, Roger, ed. (1999). The Cambridge history of the English Language: Volume III 1476–1776. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Rios, Delia M (2004-06-01). «‘You-guys’: It riles Miss Manners and other purists, but for most it adds color to language landscape». The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2007-03-30.
- ^ a b c d e Schreier, Daniel; Trudgill, Peter; Schneider, Edgar W.; Williams, Jeffrey P., eds. (2013). The Lesser-Known Varieties of English: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139487412.
- ^ Jochnowitz, George (1984). «Another View of You Guys». American Speech. 58 (1): 68–70. doi:10.2307/454759. JSTOR 454759.
- ^ Finegan, Edward (2011). Language: Its Structure and Use. Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc p. 489. ISBN 978-0495900412
- ^ a b c d e Williams, Jeffrey P.; Schneider, Edgar W.; Trudgill, Peter; Schreier, Daniel, eds. (2015). Further Studies in the Lesser-Known Varieties of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-02120-4.
- ^ «Expressions». The Aussie English Podcast. Archived from the original on Aug 23, 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f Allsopp, Richard (2003) [1996]. Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage. Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 978-976-640-145-0.
- ^ «Dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago». Chateau Guillaumme Bed and Breakfast.
- ^ Dolan, T. P. (2006). A Dictionary of Hiberno-English. Gill & Macmillan. p. 26. ISBN 978-0717140398
- ^ Wales, Katie (1996). Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. Cambridge University Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0521471022
- ^ Kortmann, Bernd; Upton, Clive (2008). Varieties of English: The British Isles. Mouton de Gruyter. p. 378. ISBN 978-3110196351
- ^ Taavitsainen, Irma; Jucker, Andreas H. (2003). Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 351. ISBN 978-9027253484
- ^ Butler, Susan (Aug 30, 2013). «Pluralising ‘you’ to ‘youse’«. www.macquariedictionary.com.au. Retrieved 2016-02-02.
- ^ My sweet | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/03/2008 Archived April 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ McClelland, Edward (Feb 6, 2017). «Here’s hoping all youse enjoy this». Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
- ^ Rehder, John B. (2004). Appalachian folkways. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7879-4. OCLC 52886851.
- ^ Howe, Stephen (1996). The Personal Pronouns in the Germanic Languages: A Study of Personal Morphology and Change in the Germanic Languages from the First Records to the Present Day. p. 174. Walter de Gruyter & Co. ISBN 978-3110146363
- ^ Graddol, David et al. (1996). English History, Diversity and Change. Routledge. p. 244. ISBN 978-0415131186
- ^ «you, pron., adj., and n.» Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
- ^ Garner, Bryan A. (2016). Garner’s Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. p. 651. ISBN 978-0-19-049148-2.