Special pronominal forms in Saaroa

Abstract Saaroa has a special set of pronominal forms not found in most other Formosan languages, as first noted by Pan (2018) . This study departs from his claims that these forms only function as plurals. In fact, extensive Saaroa texts collected by different linguists ( Li 2023 ) at different periods of time indicate that they can be either singular or plural. The functions of both the special free and bound forms will be clarified. Above all, they are contrastive. The origin of the special forms in Saaroa is suggested as a diffusion from Kanakanavu, which has similar forms with similar functions recorded earlier and is geographically adjacent. That the first person plural forms may function as singular is found not only in a few other Formosan languages, but also in unrelated languages. This study has thus cross-linguistic evidence and implications for languages in general.