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[Dave Long]

> [0] When I first consciously thought about the difference between
> singular and plural pronouns, "you" puzzled me.  I knew "y'all" was
> deprecated, but I hadn't heard "you" used as plural frequently enough
> for it to register as correct, and I couldn't figure out what the
> "proper" plural equivalent was.  I was living in Texas, you see.  :)

What did they use for the second person plural possesive?

"You" actually was the plural, once upon a time.  Thou/thee/thy-thine was the 
singular equivalent of Ye/You/Your.

The use of the plural for formal address (as in Fr. tu/vous and Ger. du/sie) 
makes sense when one considers that patriarchs, nobles, etc. were addressed as 
representatives of a group.  Use of a geographic title indicates explicitly 
what the second person formal/plural does implicitly.

Although English has lost the original second person singular/plural 
distinction, we seem to have revived it in different ways.  "You all" is well 
known; locally I hear "you guys".  Francophones require the presence of but a 
single male infant to address a convent with the masculine second person 
plural; Californians can't even be bothered about the infant.

Along similar lines, the vocative seems to be creeping back into the language, 
indicated analytically instead of as a grammatical case.

I've heard a theory that (mandarin?) Chinese has been simplified over several 
thousand years of use, similar to how creoles, developing out of contact 
languages, have simpler grammars (some claim a single grammar) than the 
non-creoles.  English seems to be undergoing this process, having lost much 
from Old English and Indoeuropean forms.  If we look still further, we find 
Europanto, a simplifying (and entertaining) proposal based in reaction to 
International English.

-Dave

see also:
<http://www.quaker.org/thee-thou.html>
<http://prod.library.utoronto.ca/utel/language/Grammar5.htm>