Daniel Berlinger: “Y’all” is plural. Others have made the same point by email. It may vary by region, and there appears to be stunning lack of consensus on the issue. Some people agree with me:
I have just learned from my in-the-field linguistic source that … “Y’all” means “you, singular, familiar”, as in “How y’all doin’, Jim?” To mark for plural, it’s “All y’all”, as in “How did all y’all do on the exam?”. “You” is reserved for formal occasions or other such unlikely eventualities.
Others feel that “y’all” is both singular and plural:
Some people contended that “y’all” is both plural and singular just as “you” can be used for both plural and singular, depending on the context. One Texan added that there “ain’t no sense in wasting the energy making up two differ’nt words, is there?”
However, a discussion on Linguist mailing list, September 1993 concludes that:
“Y’all” is an abbreviation of “you all” only etymologically. “You all” means the same as “all of you”, while “y’all” is simply plural. So “Do you all have books?” addressed to three people, one of whom is bookless, would have to be answered “no.” But “Do y’all have books” addressed to the same three, could be answered, “Yes, Hester and I do, but Herkimer here doesn’t.”
The same discussion thread also makes the equally interesting point about the possessive form of “y’all”, which, of course, is “y’all’s”. But that’s a whole different discussion that all y’all’ll have to take up without me.
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