Rudin, Catherine

English

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THE •youR GUYS'S" POSSESSIVE AND THE STRUCTURE OF DP Cathenne Rudm Wayne State College Many dialects of Enghsh have a complex second person plural pronoun you all, you guys, or a similar fonn In tlus paper I discuss the possessive fonn of such pronouns, particularly cases m which there appears to be double possessive marlang youR guys 'S 1n the ntle or the parallel youR all'S The structure of Detennmer Phrases (DPs) containing these double possessive forms presents 1nterestmg problems of analysis, I argue that for speakers who use these, the plural pronoun is not simply a compound word, but a phrase with mtemal syntacbc structure I begin by bnefly sketching the usage of the doubly possessive-marked forms, then tum to their analysts, and finally consider a number of related puzzles 1 Who Says Your Guys •s In variebes of Enghsh with colloqmal second person plural pronoun you guyj, speakers form the possessive m several ways "Is this your (plural) car?" can take any of the forms m (l)· 1 a Is this you guys' car.., b Is this you guys's car? c Is this your guys' car? d Is this your guys's car' "the your guys's construction" These differ both m the form of the possessive ending on guy (apostrophe vs apostrophe-s, phonetically 0 vs [ez]), and m you (often pronounced [ya] vs your The first difference, though mteresbng, 1s irrelevant to the pomt of this paper, it 1s common to all words endmg m sibilants, and has no beanng on the structure of possessive DP I refer to both type (le) and (Id) as "the your guys's construction", 1gnonng the difference tn phonetic reahzatJon and spelling of the final affix. The focus of this paper 1s on explammg the distmction between (la,b), the you guys' construction, on the one hand, and (lc,d), the your guys's construction, on the other The your guys •s construcbon first came to my attention m the speech of northeast Nebraska chtldren, where it is extremely common Most of the spontaneous tokens of yo11r guys's I have collected are from children The examples m (2a,b) are typical However, the construction is not simply a stage 10 children's acqmsition of the possessive, adults use 1t too, though perhaps less frequently A few adult examples are given m (2c-e) 2 a Are those your guys's toys? (B V , 4 years old, Nebraska) 388 Rudm 1996MALC The "Your Guys's" PossesSive b. Can I come to your guys's house? (Z A 1 8, Nebraska) c. I'll wnte down your guys's names (T R , 20-Ish, Nebraska) d. Your guys's mput is very important to us m making the best dec1S1on. (MM., 30-ish, Kansas) e Is that your guys's map? (S.G , 40-ish, Mmnesota) The geographical extent of your guys 's is not clear to me, but I have heard the construcuon from speakers raised m Kansas, Nebraska, and Mmnesota, and received mdirect reports of its occurrence m M1ssoun, Cabfom1a, and Texas On the other hand, "you guys" speakers from W1sconsm, Indiana, and Ohio do not, m my expenence, use the your guys's construcuon; mstead, they use possessives of type (la) or (b) Two examples are shown m (3), one spoken and one from dialog m a recent novel 1 3 a So, how was you guys's day? (C R , 40-ish, W1sconsm) b. Who handled you guys' divorce, Carla? (AW Gray, Bmo's Blues, 214) In an attempt to discover the status of the your guys 's construction, I surveyed a group of fifty undergraduates at Wayne State College (the northeast Nebraska college at which I teach, with a student population pnmanly from Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota) The results, summanzed m (4), showed that more than half found the your guys's form natural m mformal speech, and one quarter considered it to be correct m formal Enghsh 4 Syrvey of 50 Wayne State College undergraduates Given the four choices m example (1) above, A. Wln.ch one would you most naturally use m mformal speech? a (you guys') = 5 c (your guys') = 15 b (you guys's) = 21 d (your guys's) = 14 alb total: 26 c/d total: 29 TOTAL 55* B. Which one do you thmk is considered to be correct? a (you guys') = 13 c (your guys') = 12 b (you guys's) = 8 d (your guys's) = 2 alb total: 21 c/d total: 14 TOTAL- 35# *higher than 50 because some respondents gave more than one answer #lower than 50 because many said NONE, only "your" 1s correct Several respondents noted they have been taught ns's" IS never nght, only "s"' ts. ale total m B ts 25, vs bid total 10 1Although data are lackmg, 1t 1s hkely that the construction's extent is more social than stnctly geographical. One your guys's speaker suggested to me that the construction may be hnked to ltahan and/or lnsh ethnic speech m the St Loms area, but this IS not true among the Nebraska speakers with whom I am most .fam1har I do not know A W Gray's background 389 1996MALC Rudin The "Your Guys's" Possessive On the first question, about naturalness of the vanous possessive forms of you guys m mformal speech, 29 out of 50 survey respondents sa.td they would use either (c) or (d), the your guys'(s) fonns, some Sa.td they would also use (a) or (b), so the total responses for this quest10n are 55 On the second question, about which possesSJve form is "correct," 14 out of SO chose one of the your guys'(s) forms correct, 15 students considered none of the you guys options to be correct for formal use, resultmg m a total of only 35 for this question The results of this survey, wlule too small and too informally collected to be of statistical Sigmficance, do mdicate that both your guys's and you guys's exist as real grammatical possessive forms of you guys for different speakers, and that a rather large number in this part of the m1dwest prefer the your guys 's construction A s1m1lar spht exists among speakers of you all vanet1es Some use your all's as the possessive (5a), while others use you all's (Sb) Example (5c). spoken at a faculty meeting by an adnumstrator from the deep south, indicates that some speakers may simply avoid the issue, usmg neither form, perhaps parucularly m fonnal sttuattons 5 a If it's ours, or your all's • (D N , Oklahoma)2 b. I mean, he did call you-all's house three times (Anne Tyler, Ladder of Years, 310 (Maryland)3) c Is my understanding m accord with the understanding of you all? (B C , 50-ish) 2 Analysis Let us now turn to the analysis of the your guys's construction The mterestmg feature of this form 1s its double possessive markmg, a pattern that looks hke agreement But assummg 1t IS m fact agreement, 1t remains to be determined what agrees with what, w1thm what kmd of structure In current theones of syntax, simple pronouns are standardly analyzed as DP (Determmer Phrase) with only the head filled 6 fnp Cn you]] For the complex pronouns, hke you guys and you all, several structures seem possible they might be D, D+NP complement, or Spectfier+D 7 a fnP Cn you guys]] b [np fn you] fM. guys]] c fop Cmc you] Co guys]] 2Example (4a) was produced dunng a pubhc presentabon, I unfortunately dtd not wnte down the whole sentence The speaker confirmed later that he normally says "your all's" 3Tyler's novels are set m Balbmore 390 1996MALC Rudin The "Your Guys' s" Possessive I will suggest that two of these structures eXIst, for different speakers You guys has structure (7a) for those speakers who use you guys '(s) as the possessive, it 1s simply a compound lexical item. On the other hand, for those who say your guys'(s) as the possessive, you guys JS a phrase with mtemal syntacbc structure, probably of the type shown 10 (7b) Let us first consider structure (7a) This structure, with you guys treated as a smgle head, predicts no agreement. Feature percolauon does not take place w1thm lextcal items as a rule, so for example, a possessive or plural compound noun does not have poss1ve/plural mflectton on both of its parts. Plurals hke three bul/sdogs or possessives hke the bull'sdog 's collar simply do not occur. 8 *bullsdogs (plural), "'bull'sdogs' (possessive) Some complex pronouns, such as the the reflexives m (9). do have an apparent word-internal possesSJve form But this differs from the possessive agreement m your guys·~, m several ways First, these are frozen forms, part of a paradigm which mcludes non-possessive forms hke him and them as well as possessive forms like my and our Secondly, even though the first segment of the word appears to be possessive, the word as a whole 1s not, so (9b) is ungrammatical Thirdly, there 1s no agreement between parts of the word, no pattern hke that in (9c) where either both parts are unmarked (meself or perhaps Jsel/) or both inflected (myself's) In short, the reflexwe pronouns exh1b1t neither true word-internal inflection nor agreement. 9 a myself, ourselves (but himself, themselves) b *myself car c •meself/*lself, "'myselrs Real mflecuon does occur internal to certam compound nouns, for mstance, the plural markmg m motherNn-law But here agam there 1s no double mflect1on or agreement among different parts of the word (10a) Possessive marking m such nouns occurs only at the end of the whole complex word, as m (!Ob) 10 a mothers-in-law (but *mothers-m-laws) b. my mother-m-law's car (*mother's-in-law's) Thus, if you guys 1s a smgle, syntactically unanalyzable word, we expect no mtemal possessive marking Structure (7a) predicts the possessive form you guys '(s), with no possesSJve 1nflect1on on you, I take it (7a) is the correct structure for the boldfaced phrase m (la-b) Structures (7b) and (c), on the other hand, both motivate "double" possessive marking on both your and guys These more syntactically articulated structures allow for agreement between the head and its complement (m (7b)) or specifier and head (m (7c)) Both of these are well known s1tuauons Detenruners agree with their NP complements m features such as gender, number, and case m many languages, and Spec-head agreement ts pervasive in the theoretical hterature, though usually covert Let's now see how these agreement options would work m a possesStve construction 391 1996MALC Rudin The "Your Guys's" Possessive I assume a structure for possessives m which the possessor DP (pronoun or other) 1s m the Speedier pos1t10n of the larger DP headed by the POSS affix, while the possessed NP 1s 1ts complement, as shown m (11) 11 a (op [spec you] [0 r] fNp car]] b [Dp [Spec the teacher] (0 's] (Np car]] The internal structure of the specifier component of these 1s given m (12), where we see once agam that the pronoun you 1s m D, a more complex possessor phrase hke the teacher is a DP with both a head D and a complement, all within Spec 12 a. [spec [0 p [ 0 you]]] ( = l la) b [spec [0 p [ 0 the]fNp teacher]]] (=llb) As we have seen, the you guys 's possessive has the same structure as that of any possessLve pronoun, you guys 1s simply a compound pronoun, and it occupies the same structural pos1tlon as you, namely, Lt fills the head D pos1tmn of the DP m Spec Compare (13a) to (12a) The structure of the whole possessLve DP LS sketched m (13b) 13 a [spec [0 p lD you guys]]] (cf 12a) b. (Dp Cs""' [op lD you guys]]] [0 's] (Np car]] Now, what about the your guys's construction? Just as with any possessor DP, your guys LS m the specifier posLllon of the possessive DP, as m (14) 14 [0p [spec your guys]] [0 's] (Np car]] The quest.Lon LS what the mtemal structure of the matenal m this specifier 1s If Lt has structure (7b), that LS, D+NP, we obtain the more detailed version (15), gLven m tree as well as hnear form for clanty 15 a [0p [spec (Dp [0 your] fNp guys]]] Co 's] INr car]] b DP /l+po~ Spec D' [+poss] /c+pos~ / D NP DP "- [+poss] J / [ + possJ' I map D NP 's [+poss] I I guys your 392 1996MALC Rudm The "Your Guys's" Possessive Arrows m the tree show the path of feature "percolation" or agreement The DP m specifier pos1bon gets marked [+Poss] by Spec-head agreement with the [+Poss] D (possessive affix); the possessive feature then percolates to the head D of the phrase in Spec position, resulting m the possesSlve form your If the specifier m (14) has the mtemal structure (le) instead of (7b), 1 e Spec+D instead ofD+NP, we get the configuration m (16) 16 a fop Cs,.., (op Cs,.., your] (0 guys]]] 6 's] f'Np car]] b. DP /l+p~ Spec D' (+p~] /+poss~ I D NP DP [+poss] ( /[+po~ I map Spec D 's [+p~] [+poss] I I your guys Here the DP m Spec poSltlon 1s marked (+Poss] by Spec-head agreement, JUSt as m (15), the possessive feature percolates to the head D, which 1s now guys, and then by Spec-head agreement to the Speedier contammg your Both structures, (15) and (16), motivate the possessive form your But (15) seems preferable, for a couple of reasons First, you, bemg a pronoun, makes a more expected D consb.tuent than guys does, as we saw m (6) and (12a), pronouns are standardly analyzed as D in all sorts of constructions nus structure makes you guys parallel to a phrase bke those guys, which 1s clearly D+NP The lack of a possessive form of those (or for that matter of them (1 lb/12b) the teacher's car) is simply a morphological gap Compare with a language bke German, m which both the determmer and noun would take gemuve case mflect1on m a phrase hke dos Auto deS lehrerS. I conclude, then, that the two possessive forms of you guys represent two different structural configurallons, repeated m (17) You guys'(s) car has you guys as a smgle lexical item tn D, whde your guys'(s) car has a more complex phrasal structure wlth a D and an NP complement 17 a CoP !:spec [op Co you guys]]] 6 's] [m. car]] b IDP [Spec [op 6 your] £m. guys]]] 6 's] k car]] Parallel arguments establish that the two possesSive forms of you all have structures parallel to those m (17), you all's has you all m D, while your all's has a more complex 393 1996MALC Rudin The "Your Guys's" Possessive structure cons1shng of D plus a complement The only difference 1s that all as presumably QP, rather than NP, so your all's 1s D +QP mstead of D+ NP These structures are shown m (18) 18 a fop [spec [op [0 you all]]] lo 's] fNp car]] b (op [Spec [op lo your] fop all]]] lo 's] fNp earn 3 Related Puzzles A number of other colloqmal possessive usages pose problems which may be related to those discussed m thts paper I do not present anythmg hke a complete treatment of these here, but Simply mention several classes of potenbally relevant and puzzlmg data First, nonce that guys can be used with other plural pronouns as well as with you (19a), and for some speakers the first person plural pronoun may also occur m a "double" possessive construction (19b). Two audience members at the spoken presentauon of this paper (one from Missoun, the other from Ca11fom1a) commented that our guys's ts acceptable for them, parbcularly ma contrasuve or focused context "Our guys's team 1s domg fine, it's your guys's team that's m trouble" The third person plural possessive thezr guys's, on the other hand, appears to be margmal tf possible at all It may be relevant here that even the non-possess1ve-marked thmt person form m (19a) 1s much less common and less standard than you guys, them guys 1s a st1gmauzed vanant of those guys, whose use makes many of us who happily use you guys cnnge Us guys, whtle not part1cularly sbgmatlzed, appears to be less fully grammabcaltzed than you guys, and less commonly used, perhaps because us alone ts already unamb1guousty plural, unb.ke you 19 a us guys, them guys b us guys's car I our guys's car c them guys's car I *'their guys's car Secondly, there are numerous phrases with you followed by a noun, m what at first glance looks identical to a you guys construction Some of these are hsted m (20) But to the best of my knowledge no agreemg possessive pronoun ever occurs m these A phrase hke your folks's car is of course possible, but it means "the car belongmg to the folks who belong to you", not "you folks's car" I assume that these phrases have an appositive eptthet structure, DP+DP, mstead of Dor D+NP 20 a you people, you folks, you lads b #your people's, #your folks's, #your lads's S1mdarly, some phrases with you and a quantifier, rem1ruscent of the you all plural, do not occur with possessive your You two's r<1om is at least margmally possible, but your nvo's room ts not Like the phrases m (20), these presumably have an appositive structure DP+QP 21.a. you two, you both b *your two's, *your both's 394 1996MALC Rudm The "Your Guys's,. Possessive On the other hand, certaJn mterrogat1ve possessive phrases do display a vanety of opt10ns for possessive markmg rem1ruscent of the you guys'slyour gu:ys's d2stmcllon 4 Some speakers mflect the first element of phrases bke those m (22), the quesbon word whose Some use a possessive affix at the end of the phrase And at least for who the hell some speakers accept double possessive marking, resultmg m both whose and hell's, very much hke the pattern m the your guys 's construcllon 22 a Whose else would It be? Who else's ??Whose else's b Whose all are these? Who all's • ??Whose all's c Whose the hell idea was this? Who the hell's Whose the hell's idea was tlus? Furthermore, possessives of conJomed phrases also show some vanab1hty m possessive marJang A colleague of mme referred to a class we were to team teach as Cathenne and l's class The possessive form my would be more expected than l's, but hes1tat1on over whether to also possessive-mark the first conjunct is common 23 Cathenne and I's class Cathenne's and my? Catherine and my? Fmally, I have no concrete mformatton on the possess1ve-mflected forms of complex second person plural pronouns from other dialects, such as you'uns, youse, or the gangster-mov1e youse guys It is, however, harder to imagme these taking an overt possessive marker on the first element than for you guys or you all, given the cbtic1zed or phonologically fused nature of the followmg part of the word 41'hanks to Ed Batustella and Russ Rasmussen for these examples 395 

"Your Guys's" Possessive and the Structure of DP

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"Your Guys's" Possessive and the Structure of DP

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