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I generally hear y'alls's used as the possessive form, but I have also heard yourn. Since y'all is a colloquial pronoun, its possessive form is basically liberated from prescriptive linguistics which would probably say that y'all is a contraction for you all and therefore must be possessivized as of all of you.

Do you know if there is a "standard" way to make y'all possessive, insofar as y'all usage can be considered standard?

RegDwigнt
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Peter Olson
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  • Possible duplicate of: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/8102/what-is-the-proper-usage-of-yall-in-southern-american-dialects – jcolebrand Jul 21 '11 at 20:43
  • Why are there two questions here that are widely divergent? Which would you like answered? – jcolebrand Jul 21 '11 at 20:44
  • @Jsolebrand Sorry, I meant possessive but wrote plural, which doesn't make sense anyways because y'all is already plural. It should be fixed now. – Peter Olson Jul 21 '11 at 20:47
  • y'all is most assuredly not plural. I've now had several people tell me I'm wrong. Go figure. – jcolebrand Jul 21 '11 at 20:54
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    @jcolebrand When would you ever use y'all to refer to only one person? – Peter Olson Jul 21 '11 at 20:56
  • @jcolbrand I agree it refers the singular entity that represents a group. In addition it would be a contracted form of you all so the possesive would be your all. Though my cousins from Tennessee say y'all's. To me rhis is kind of like asking the the plural form of s'not (is not). There is no correct way to say something improperly. – Chad Jul 21 '11 at 21:02
  • I would just ask someone "so are y'all going to the store then" knowing that it was only one person and only one person could possibly go. Kind of like "am I not going" but ... yeah. – jcolebrand Jul 21 '11 at 21:05
  • Say you divided a room of friends into two even groups. You turn to one group and ask "What are you half going to do today?" Do we now need to invent fake pronouns and possessive forms to deal with "you-half"? I suggest "yalf" and "yalf's". – James Jul 21 '11 at 21:41
  • 'standard' is not an appropriate word for this situation, better to ask what do people commonly use. The answer to that is a mix of 'your', 'yours', and 'y'alls'."Y'all's's" sounds like it shouldn't be a thing, yet, I feel like it's used. – Mitch May 29 '20 at 01:58

1 Answers1

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It depends on whether you are indicating individual or group possession.

Did y'all get your coats?

Your is used because each person has a coat.

Is that y'all's house?

Y'all's is used because the house is theirs collectively. I never use y'alls's because y'all is already plural and doesn't need the s before the apostrophe.

For what it's worth, I'm from the Alabama and use both y'all and y'all's regularly.

James Waldby - jwpat7
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jimreed
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  • I agree with the logic behind the usage of your to indicate individual possession, but I don't think it always happens that way in practice. As a Tennessean, I often hear your all's or y'all's in the same place. I've never seen either forms written, but one can assume that anyone willing to make such an obviously improper grammatical construct is not going to be too concerned with the placement of an apostrophe. – HaL Jul 21 '11 at 21:03
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    This is about correct. I say "about" because this is very informal, loose usage at best. I also have lived in the South and have noted wide use of "y'all" and "y'all's." Singular "y'all" is illustrative, e.g., you are talking to one person, you can ask, "Is this y'all's truck?" which implies family ownership - even though other members of the family are not present. "Yourn" sounds like an Appalachianism to me. – The Raven Jul 21 '11 at 21:15
  • @The Raven: "Yourn" is mostly archaic in the UK, but still current in some Northern (rural/rustic?) dialects, I think. – FumbleFingers Jul 21 '11 at 22:53