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Forms and Functions of Second Person Plural Forms in World Englishes: a Corpus-Based Study

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Forms and Functions of Second Person Plural Forms in World Englishes: a Corpus-Based Study Forms and Functions of Second Person Plural Forms in World Englishes: a corpus-based Study Liviana Galiano This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2020 Department of Linguistics and English Language 1 Declaration This thesis has not been submitted in support of an application for another degree at this or any other university. It is the result of my own work and includes nothing that is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated. Many of the ideas in this thesis were the product of discussion with my supervisor Willem Hollmann. Liviana Galiano Lancaster University, UK 2 Abstract The present work is a corpus-based research on the plural forms of the second person pronoun you (2PL forms henceforth) which focuses on the similarities and differences among twenty varieties of English. The corpus (GloWbe) contains 1.9 billion words collected on the web in 2012. The 2PL forms I have analysed are the result of both morphological and analytic strategies of number marking: yous(e), yi(s/z), yus, you guys, you all and y(')all, you two, you three, you four, you ones and y(ou)'uns/yin(s/z), you lot and other you + NP-PL expressions. The aim of my research is provide an empirically informed description of the forms and functions of 2PL forms in contemporary English. This is done by combining the analysis of corpus data with the literature on 2PL forms as well as the relevant theories on language change. The results show that there are two main geographically-related trends in the use of 2PL forms: analytic strategies are preferred in the US, whereas morphological strategies are preferred in the European and Australian varieties of English. As far as the uses are concerned, 2PL forms were observed to perform other functions besides number-marking: they can work as possessive determiners and pronouns, singular- reference emphatic markers, and attention-getting devices. The reanalysis of 2PL forms into markers of possession, the semantic bleaching evident in singular-reference 2PL forms, and the instances of phonological reduction observed in the forms y(‘)all and yin(s/z)) are seen as clues to on-going processes of grammaticalization. On the other hand, the significant involvement of 2PL forms in pragmatically charged contexts (mainly expressing emphasis and politeness) and the similarity of some attention- getting 2PL forms to pragmatic markers are seen as clues to the pragmaticalization of 2PL forms. On a theoretical level, 2PL forms offer some insight on the processes of grammaticalization, pragmaticalization and intersubjectification. In particular, an alternative view of intersubjectification as a sub-process of pragmaticalization is proposed. Pragmaticalization, in turn, is seen as a distinct, independent process from grammaticalization. The linguistic evolution of 2PL forms is also described from the 3 perspective of constructionalization (Traugott and Trousdale 2014), which solves the issues related to the definition of the boundaries between grammaticalization, pragmaticalization and intersubjectification. Finally, the strong pragmatic character observed of singular-reference suffixed 2PL forms is used to support the theory of morphopragmatics (Dressler and Barbaresi 2015, 2017). Keywords: second person pronouns, number-marking, pragmatic marking, social categorization, World Englishes, grammaticalization, pragmaticalization, intersubjectification, constructionalization 4 Acknowledgements Thank you to Erica Pastore for taking care of me since the beginning of this. Thank you to Leonardo Forcieri for patiently dealing with my inclination to complain. Thank you to Willem Hollmann of Lancaster University, UK, for always reminding me of the kind of person I want to be. 5 Contents 1. INTRODUCTION…………….……………………………………………..…….1 2. SECOND PERSON PLURAL FORMS: DEFINITION, HISTORY, NON- STANDARDNESS…………………………………………………………………....4 2.1 2PL forms: a definition…………….………………….…………………….…….4 2.2 Why study 2PL forms?............................................................................................7 2.3 Historical remarks on 2PL forms in English………………………….…………10 2.3.1 A history of frequencies of 2PL forms……………………….………………12 2.4 2PL forms in reference dictionaries and grammars……………………………..14 2.4.1 Yous(e) in dictionaries…………………..……………………………………15 2.4.2 You all, y’all and yall in dictionaries…………………….……….………..17 2.4.3 You two, you three and you four in dictionaries…………………….……..18 2.4.4 You + NP-PL in dictionaries…………………………………………………19 2.4.5 2PL forms in learner’s dictionaries…...……………………………………..19 2.4.6 2PL in the Urban Dictionary: a speakers’ perspective………….………….20 2.4.7 2PL forms in reference grammars…...……………………………….………22 2.4.8 Summary……...……………………………………………………………..….24 2.5 The non-standardness of 2PL forms………….………………………………….26 2.6 Grammaticalization, pragmaticalization, (inter)subjectification….………...…..31 2.7 The constructionalist approach and 2PL forms…………………………………40 2.8 Aims and research questions………….……………………………….......……44 3. CORPUS, DATA AND METHODOLOGY………….…………….……………46 3.1 The corpus……………………….…………………………………….……..…46 3.2 The dataset……………………………….………………………...…….……..50 3.3 Diatopic variation in the corpus…………………………….…………….….....51 3.4 Semantic and pragmatic categorisation of 2PL forms……………………..…....55 3.5 Collocations and semantic prosody………………….………………….……....63 6 4. SUFFIXED 2PL FORMS…………………………………….……………...……67 4.1 Frequencies…….……………………………………………………….………68 4.1.1 Yous in the Inner and Outer Circles……………………………………70 4.1.2 Youse in the Inner and Outer Circles……………………………..…….71 4.1.3 Other spelling variants in the Inner and Outer Circles………………72 4.1.4 Conclusion…...…………………………………………………………….73 4.2 Functions………..………………………………………………………...…….75 4.2.1 Frequencies of the functions of suffixed 2PL forms………………..…..75 4.2.1.1 Yous(e)……………………………….………………….……76 4.2.1.2 Other suffixed 2PL variants………………………………………..78 4.2.2 Conclusion……...………………………………………………………….80 4.2.3 Possessive suffixed 2PL forms……………………………………………83 4.3 Collocates and Patterns…………….…………………………….……………..88 4.3.1 Conclusion………………………………………...……………………….91 4.4 The pragmatics of suffixed 2PL forms…………………………….………..…..93 4.5 Significance: standard you as a control sample………….………………..……101 4.6 Double and triple marking of suffixed 2PL forms…………….………………..104 4.6.1 2PL all/all 2PL……………………..………………………...…...………106 4.6.1.1 2PL all……………………….………………………….……107 4.6.1.2 All 2PL…...……………………………………………….………..107 4.6.2 Suffixed 2PL guys…………………………………………….……108 4.6.3 Suffixed 2PL + cardinal number…………………………………….….109 4.6.4 Suffixed 2PL + NP-PL………………………………………...…………110 4.6.5 Others……………………..………………………………………….…..112 4.6.6 Triple-marked expressions………………..……………………………113 4.6.7 Conclusion………………..……………………………………..……….115 4.7 Conclusions on suffixed 2PL forms……………….……………………..……116 5. YOU + CARDINAL NUMBER…………………………………………………118 5.1 Methodology………………….……………………………………………….120 7 5.2 You two………………………………...………………………….……………..……..123 5.2.1 Functions…………………….…….….……………………..……….…….…124 5.2.1.1 Referential functions………………………………..………..…..124 5.2.1.1.1 Geographical variation of referential functions…...126 5.2.2 Collocates..…………….…………………………………………………...…127 5.2.2.1 Grammatical words………….…….……………………..………128 5.2.2.2 Lexical words………..…………………………………...........….130 5.2.2.3 Interjections and attention-getters...………….…….……..…...132 5.2.3 The pragmatics of you two………….…………………………………133 5.2.3.1 Geographical variation of the pragmatic functions of you two………………………………………………...…………………135 5.2.4 Semantic prosody….………………………………………..………….…….136 5.2.4.1 Summary………………..…………………………..………..……137 5.2.5 What about competitors?........................................................................138 5.2.5.1 You both and both of you…………………………….…..….139 5.2.5.2 The two of you……………………………….……………...144 5.2.5.2.1 Frequencies…………...……………………………..…144 5.2.5.2.2 Functions………………...…………………………..…145 5.2.5.2.3 Collocates………………..………………………...…..147 5.2.5.3 Summary………………..…………………………….……………151 5.3 You three……………………………….…...…………………………………………..153 5.3.1 Frequencies……………………………..………………..…………………..154 5.3.2 Functions…………………………………..………………...……………….154 5.3.3 Collocates…………………………...……..…………………………………159 5.3.4 Double marking…………………………………………………..…………..161 5.3.5 Competing structures: the three of you…………………………....…..163 5.3.6 Conclusion……………..……………………………………………………..166 5.4 You four………………….…..………………………………………….……….……..167 5.5 The pragmatics of you + cardinal number…………….……….……...……….170 6. YOU ALL, Y’ALL AND YALL……………………………….………..…………172 6.1 Frequencies………………………………….……………………………...…174 8 6.2 Functions and context…………….…………………….……………….……..176 6.2.1 You all……………………………………………….………….……..177 6.2.1.1 Geographical variation of the functions of you all….……....182 6.2.2 All of you…………………………….………………………………..185 6.2.3 Y’all……………………………………………………………..…….187 6.2.3.1 Geographical variation of the functions of y’all………….…194 6.2.4 Yall …………….………..…………………………………………………..197 6.3 Conclusion……….....……………………………………………………..…..203 7. YOU + NP-PL……………………………………………….……………………208 7.1You guys….………………………………………………………………...…..212 8.1.1 Geographical variation of the functions and uses of you guys………218 7.2 You people…...………………………………………………….……………….……..221 8.2.1 Geographical variation of the functions and uses of you people…....229 7.3 You lot……....……………………………………………………….……...….232 8.3.1 Geographical variation of the functions and uses of you lot……......238 7.4 You ones, y(ou)'uns, yinz………………………………………………………239 7.4 Conclusion……………………………….…………………….......………….241 8. FORMS
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