Hya’, as a 3rd person singular pronoun in Jianshi Atayal, is commonly used to refer anaphorically to a third person entity specified in prior discourse. Based on an investigation of the uses of hya’ in natural discourse, we argue that when it occurs in a specific construction, namely the hya’ construction, hya’ functions as a positioning stance marker that must occur with a preceding nominal or pronominal element. In the hya’ construction, hya’ allows the speaker to position the stance object as a third participant and to comment on this entity via the comment clause that occurs following the hya’ construction.