Mi INFOPEDIA dice super le uso de 'you' in anglese:
The history of the pronoun you provides a good example of
the effect social forces can have on the language. You
began as the accusative and dative form of the second
person plural pronoun. The nominative plural was ye. The
form used to address one person in centuries past was
thou (thee was the accusative and dative form of the
singular). As far back as the 14th century, the plural
forms ye and you began to be used to address one
person, usually a superior, as a mark of deference and
respect. Curme 1931 conjectures that this use may be
related to the use of the first-person plural we by
sovereigns: Jespersen 1909-49 (vol. 2) lays it to French
politeness at work in Middle English. However it began, the
use of the polite plural gradually grew: Strang 1970 points
out that such a use once begun must grow, since people
would rather be polite than risk giving offense in cases of
doubt. So as the use of the plural increased, the singular
became the special use, the limited form. By about the
beginning of the 17th century, thou and thee marked an
intimate or personal relationship, or a superior to
inferior relationship (Evans 1962 quotes the prosecutor of
Sir Walter Raleigh using thou in deliberate disrespect).
Then by about the middle of the 16th century the contrast
in function between ye and you began breaking down. Henry
Sweet, in his New English Grammar (1892), attributed part
of the breakdown to sound: there seems to have been a
tendency to push ye into uses that matched the rhyming
thee and you into those that matched the rhyming (then)
thou. Ben Jonson's early-17th-century Grammar listed you
and ye as simple variants, while thou and thee retained
their traditional functions. Wyld 1920 observes that the
first Queen Elizabeth seems to have used only you in
writing; a user of her prestige must surely have given
you a boost. Wyld also says that in 16th-century usage
there was much more use of you as a nominative than of
ye as an accusative or dativeæin other words, you was
expanding its range at the expense of ye. This process has
continued, although ye has not disappeared entirely (see
YE, pronoun ). The displacement of the singular pronouns
did not go entirely unnoticed. In 1660 George Fox published
an attack on those who used you as a singular, but it had
no effect at all. Fox couched his attack in grammatical
terms, but as Marckwardt 1958 points out, Fox was the
leader of the Quakers, and there were political and
religious motives behind his remarks. The Quakers believed
in equality and disapproved you as an acknowledgment of
one's betters. The loss of a singular pronoun for everyday
use was noticed in the common speech and gave rise to
various remedies. The first was to make the distinction
between singular you and plural you by verb agreement;
you was for the singular continued in polite if informal
use well into the 18th century before it lost
respectability (see YOU WAS). Special plural forms were
later contrived to hold you chiefly to singular use; these
include such formations as you-all (see YOU-ALL), you-uns,
yez, and youse. None of these save you-all has enjoyed
much success, or at least much prestige. So the simple
social drive of good manners has in a few centuries
completely remade the second person pronoun. No doubt the
social pressures of today will work changes in the language
as well. (For examples of changes that may be taking place,
see PERSON 2 and THEY, THEIR, THEM 1.) The chances are,
however, that most changes they bring about will not be
rapid.
'Youse' es rar. Illo probabilemente es in un dialecto in
le vicinitate de Nove York.
Cordialmente,
Stan
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