This paper explores the use of possessive second person plural forms you all(’)s, y'all(’)s and yall(’)s in World Englishes. A corpus-based analysis provides information about the frequencies of occurrence and geographical location, the context of occurrence, the connotation and semantic preference of possessive you all, y'all and yall. The analysis also highlights the differences between you all(’)s, y'all(’)s and yall(’)s and standard your.
This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Lingua. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Lingua, 243, 2020 DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2020.102918