End of ADS-L Digest - 20 Jan 1995 to 21 Jan 1995

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There are 10 messages totalling 180 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. 2 pl, "Yankee" (5)

 2. ADS Net Resources

 3. 2nd pl. (3)

 4. TV and dialect



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Date:  Sun, 22 Jan 1995 09:11:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.EDU>

Subject: 2 pl, "Yankee"



You guys meaning something like the organization you represent is common here

in Michigan. Do you guys have long underwear? (a sentence a CRAN [Curiously

Removed Apppalachian in the North] like me is apt to ask these days).

You-all versus yall was socially marked in Louisville in the 50s. The first

was perceived by middle class (especially lower middle class) speakers to be

OK; they avoided the second and associated it with hick and/or working class

speech. The truth was (so far as I can reconstruct it) that upper middle (and

probably upper) class speakers and working class speakers both used it. The

you-all speakers were, therefore, the more classically linguistically

insecure, although the various regional inputs into the Louisville might also

have been partly responsible.

I cannot reconstruct (and probably should not try) any subtle pragmatic or

semantic differences between the two, but I am intrigued by the possibility.

Dennis Preston

<22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu>