Use the plain completive when the completed event or resulting state is the main neutral assertion. Use the relative completive in the out-of-focus clause of a canonical fronted constituent question, constituent focus, or identifying relative clause. The distinction is information structure, not “ordinary past” versus “special past,” and singular spellings can conceal it.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko visibly contrasts plural forms such as plain sun and relative suka, but it writes several singular members alike. Spoken tone distinguishes forms that writing merges, so a written ya must be interpreted from syntax and discourse.
The shortest useful decision tree
- Are you neutrally asserting the whole proposition? Choose the plain completive.
- Is this a polar question about whether the whole proposition is true? Plain completive is the normal starting point.
- Has a constituent been fronted as the missing value in “who/what/where did …?” Choose relative completive in the open clause.
- Does a fronted constituent identify or contrast one value? Choose relative completive, whether or not an overt ne/ce appears.
- Does the clause with da identify a noun by a completed event? Choose relative completive in the canonical identifying relative clause.
The clearest minimal contrast uses a plural subject because the difference is visible:
Sun gyara motar shugaban jiya da safe.
They repaired the manager's car yesterday morning. (plain completive; neutral event assertion)
Motar ce suka gyara jiya.
It was the car that they repaired yesterday. (relative completive; object focus)
The repair is completed in both sentences. The first answers “What happened?” The second answers “What did they repair?” and treats “they repaired x” as an open background.
Plain completive: assert the event as a whole
A neutral report places the person marker before the lexical verb and presents the completed event as the main update.
Mun kammala lissafin kafin ƙarfe huɗu.
We completed the calculation before four o'clock.
Amina ta aiko da sabon jadawalin da safe.
Amina sent the new schedule in the morning.
An rufe hanyar saboda ambaliya.
The road was closed because of flooding. (plain impersonal completive)
Plain completive also suits a polar question, because the question tests the entire proposition rather than requesting one missing constituent:
Kun karɓi wasiƙar daga ofishin?
Did you all receive the letter from the office?
Musa ya biya kuɗin makarantar?
Did Musa pay the school fees?
The question mark does not itself trigger relative morphology. Compare the constituent question Me Musa ya biya?: although written ya looks the same, the fronted me creates a relative-completive environment in speech.
Stative predicates expose why “past tense” is too narrow:
Na san amsar tun farko.
I knew the answer from the beginning.
Ta fahimci dalilin da ya sa aka jinkirta.
She understood the reason for the delay.
The English interpretation follows lexical meaning and context. The Hausa choice is still completive aspect plus information packaging.
Fronted wh-questions select the relative form
In a canonical constituent question, the speaker asks the listener to fill a slot. The remainder of the clause is the background: “they bought x,” “you called x,” or “x opened the office.” That open clause takes the relative completive.
Me suka saya wa taron?
What did they buy for the meeting?
Wa kika kira bayan kin isa gida?
Whom did you call after you reached home? (to one female)
Ina muka ajiye mabuɗin ɗakin ajiya?
Where did we put the storeroom key?
Yaushe kuka fara aikin sabon ginin?
When did you all begin work on the new building?
With a questioned subject, singular spellings can again hide the relative paradigm:
Wa ya buɗe ofishin da wuri haka?
Who opened the office so early?
The rule is not “put -ka in every question.” The relative series has its own person forms; for 2f singular, 1pl, 2pl, 3pl, and impersonal the visible diagnostics include kika, muka, kuka, suka, aka. See the relative completive paradigm.
Focus uses the relative open clause
Focus chooses one value from alternatives. In the familiar cleft-like frame, a fronted noun is followed by ne or ce, and the remainder takes relative completive.
Hauwa ce muka gani a asibitin, ba Zainab ba.
It was Hauwa that we saw at the hospital, not Zainab.
Takardun ne kuka manta a motar.
It was the documents that you all forgot in the car.
Su ne suka shirya liyafar bana.
They are the ones who organized this year's celebration.
The background is respectively “we saw x,” “you forgot x,” and “x organized the celebration.” Relative morphology marks that backgrounded open proposition.
However, ne/ce is not universally obligatory. Hausa can use particleless fronted focus where discourse and contrast make the structure clear; the relative TAM form remains the crucial diagnostic:
Littafin nahawu muka saya, ba ƙamus ba.
It was the grammar book that we bought, not a dictionary. (particleless fronted focus)
Da safe suka tashi, ba da rana ba.
It was in the morning that they left, not in the afternoon. (particleless time focus)
Do not “repair” these by forcing ne/ce into every focused utterance. Conversely, fronting a phrase without the relative form does not automatically produce this canonical focus reading.
Identifying relative clauses take relative completive
An identifying relative clause uses a completed event to restrict a noun. Its proposition is not the main assertion; it helps the listener identify the referent.
Na karanta rahoton da suka aiko mana ranar Litinin.
I read the report that they sent us on Monday.
Ga matar da muka haɗu da ita a Kano.
Here is the woman whom we met in Kano.
Sun gyara gadar da aka lalata a lokacin ruwan sama.
They repaired the bridge that was damaged during the rains.
Compare an independent assertion and a restricting clause:
Ma’aikatan ofishin sun aika rahoton da safe.
The office staff sent the report in the morning. (plain main assertion)
Rahoton da ma’aikatan suka aika jiya ya iso.
The report that the employees sent yesterday has arrived. (relative clause)
The sending can be equally real and equally known in both. What changes is its grammatical status: main update versus background property identifying rahoton.
A diagnostic substitution test
When singular writing hides the contrast, substitute a third-person plural subject and see which form the construction demands.
- Neutral Musa ya kawo kayan becomes Yaran sun kawo kayan: plain sun.
- Focus Kayan ne Musa ya kawo becomes Kayan ne yaran suka kawo: relative suka.
- Question Me Musa ya kawo? becomes Me yaran suka kawo?: relative suka.
- Relative clause kayan da Musa ya kawo becomes kayan da yaran suka kawo: relative suka.
Yaran sun kawo kayan wasan bayan makaranta.
The children brought the play equipment after school. (neutral assertion)
Kayan wasan ne yaran suka kawo bayan makaranta.
It was the play equipment that the children brought after school. (focus)
The substitution does not change the syntax; it merely makes the choice visible in boko.
Both choices are possible, but not interchangeable
The same real-world event can be packaged differently. Suppose everyone is discussing yesterday's repairs:
Masu aikin sun gyara rufin jiya.
The workers repaired the roof yesterday. (announces the completed repair)
Rufin ne masu aikin suka gyara jiya.
It was the roof that the workers repaired yesterday. (identifies what they repaired)
The relative sentence often invites an alternative—perhaps they did not repair the wall. The plain sentence need not contrast any object.
Mini-dialogue:
A: Me ya faru a makarantar jiya? B: Masu aikin sun gyara ɗakunan aji.
A: What happened at the school yesterday? B: The workers repaired the classrooms. (whole event is new)
A: Wane ɓangare masu aikin suka gyara? B: Ɗakunan aji suka gyara, ba ofis ba.
A: Which part did the workers repair? B: They repaired the classrooms, not the office. (particleless object focus)
Choosing plain sun as the second answer would report the event, but it would not directly mirror the requested contrast as well as relative suka.
Negation and the boundary of the shortcut
The plain-relative opposition described here is an affirmative paradigm contrast. Negative completive has its own forms, such as ban, ba ka, ba ta, ba mu, ba su … ba; it does not preserve a separate pair corresponding to sun/suka.
Ba su sayi motar ba.
They did not buy the car. (negative completive)
Motar ce ba su saya ba, ba babur ba.
It was the car that they did not buy, not the motorcycle. (focus remains visible outside the negative clause)
Also, advanced discourse contains in-situ and marked strategies. The dependable production rule is for canonical affirmative fronted wh/focus and identifying relatives. Do not use relative morphology merely because information feels important, nor plain morphology merely because information feels new.
Common Mistakes
1. Using plain sun after canonical object focus
❌ Kwamfutar ce sun gyara da safe.
Incorrect in canonical affirmative focus — the open clause requires relative suka.
✅ Kwamfutar ce suka gyara da safe.
It was the computer that they repaired in the morning.
2. Using plain kun in a fronted object question
❌ Me kun tattauna bayan taron?
Incorrect canonical constituent question — use relative kuka.
✅ Me kuka tattauna bayan taron?
What did you all discuss after the meeting?
3. Using relative suka in a neutral report
❌ Suka isa tashar kafin ruwan sama.
Incorrect as an isolated neutral assertion with no licensing focus or relative environment.
✅ Sun isa tashar kafin ruwan sama.
They reached the station before the rain.
4. Treating every question as relative
❌ Kuka karɓi saƙon jiya?
Incorrect for a neutral yes/no question; fronted wh/focus is absent.
✅ Kun karɓi saƙon jiya?
Did you all receive the message yesterday?
5. Using plain TAM because particleless focus has no ne/ce
❌ Wannan aikin mun gama yau, sauran sai gobe.
Incorrect for the intended particleless object focus — the open clause needs relative muka.
✅ Wannan aikin muka gama yau, sauran sai gobe.
This is the task we finished today; the rest will wait until tomorrow. (particleless focus)
Key Takeaways
- Plain completive presents the completed proposition as the main neutral assertion.
- Relative completive marks the open clause in canonical fronted wh-questions, constituent focus, and identifying relative clauses.
- Sun/suka, mun/muka, kun/kuka make the contrast visible; singular boko forms can hide it.
- A polar question normally keeps plain completive; a fronted constituent question selects relative completive.
- Particleless fronted focus can still take relative TAM; ne/ce is not universally obligatory.
- Negation has its own paradigm and does not preserve the affirmative plain-relative pairing.
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Start learning Hausa →Related Topics
- Plain Completive PronounsA2 — Master the Hausa plain completive paradigm na, ka, kin, ya, ta, mun, kun, sun, and impersonal an for neutral completed-event clauses.
- Relative Completive PronounsA2 — Use na, ka, kika, ya, ta, muka, kuka, suka, and aka for completed events in Hausa focus, question, and relative environments.
- Plain versus Relative Completive: PresuppositionB2 — Understand how plain and relative completives divide assertion from background in Hausa without turning presupposition into a mechanical tense rule.
- Focus and Relative CompletiveB1 — Use the relative-completive subject markers when a completed or established situation follows a fronted Hausa focus.
- Relative Completive after Object Wh-WordsB2 — Use Hausa relative-completive subject markers after fronted object questions while preserving subject agreement and distinguishing subject questions.
- Relative Completive inside Relative ClausesB1 — Build completed Hausa relative clauses with linked heads, invariant da, the relative-completive paradigm, and appropriate gaps or resumptives.