*s   

*sakay₂ walk

*sakeC muntjac, barking deer

Note:   Also Pazeh maket, Tsou taʔacə, Kanakanabu sakut, Proto-Rukai *akəcə ‘muntjac, pygmy deer’. Although this word can be securely reconstructed for PAn, it shows phonological irregularities in a number of languages, and its attested distribution may be due in part to borrowing. Kanakanabu sakut is most simply explained as a loan from Bunun but loan sources for the irregular forms in Pazeh, Tsou and the Rukai languages remain unclear. Finally, as the smallest of the three species of deer native to Taiwan the muntjac is often called the ‘pygmy deer’, but in Borneo and other parts of western Indonesia it is the middle-sized member of three deer species (the smallest being the mousedeer, Tragulus kanchil), and is commonly known there as the ‘barking deer’, from its dog-like barking call.

*sakut to carry, transport, move something

Note:   Also Kenyah (Long Wat) sakud ‘to carry something piecemeal (in several trips)’.

*salaw to pour, of heavy rain

*samaq remnant, leftover

Note:   I normally avoid proposing a reconstruction that is based solely on the comparison of two geographically adjacent Formosan languages. However, in the present case significant differences in both phonological form and meaning greatly reduce the likelihood that this distribution is a product of borrowing.

*saNiw whetstone

*sequŋ horn of an animal

Note:   Also Puyuma suqaŋ ‘horn, antler’. Li (1978:143) proposed ‘Proto-Southern Formosan’ *səq₁uŋ ‘horn’

*sihikay maggot

Note:   Also Thao dilhkay, Bunun sukað ‘maggot’, Manobo (Western Bukidnon) tagkey ‘maggot’, Maranao tagkai ‘worm’.

*siRa₁ yesterday

Note:   Also Atayal (Squliq) hera, Saaroa ki:ra ‘yesterday’.

*supay whetting, sharpening

Note:   There is no perfect correspondence between any two forms reflecting what I posit as *sa-supay-an ‘whetstone’. However, Pazeh and Puyuma, two languages that probably have not been in contact since the differentiation of the PAn speech community, agree in forming this word by Ca- reduplication plus a suffix (reflecting either *-en or *-an). The choice of *-an is supported by agreement between Kavalan and Puyuma, two languages with no known history of mutual contact.