Hausa has two basic ways to place a demonstrative around a noun. A full form comes before a bare noun—wannan littafi “this book,” waccan mota “that car”—but short nan or can comes after a linked noun: littafin nan, motar can. The position and the noun's form change together.
This is not free word order. Moving the demonstrative requires changing the construction. The most reliable habit is to memorize complete pairs such as wannan gida / gidan nan and waccan mota / motar can. All ordinary forms below are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa).
Two complete noun-phrase frames
| Reference | Full demonstrative before noun | Linked noun before short demonstrative |
|---|---|---|
| near masculine singular | wannan gida | gidan nan |
| near feminine singular | wannan mota | motar nan |
| near plural | waɗannan motoci | motocin nan |
| far masculine singular | wancan gida | gidan can |
| far feminine singular | waccan mota | motar can |
| far plural | waɗancan motoci | motocin can |
Wannan gida yana da ɗakuna uku.
This house has three rooms.
Gidan nan yana da ɗakuna uku.
This house has three rooms.
Waccan mota ta yi nisa da mu.
That car is far from us.
Motar can ta yi nisa da mu.
That car over there is far from us.
The pairs can identify the same kind of referent. Their internal syntax differs: the pre-nominal frame carries demonstrative features in the full form; the post-nominal frame places an invariant short item after a noun whose linker marks its class.
Choosing the linked noun form
Before nan or can, masculine singular nouns and plurals use the -n series. A feminine singular ending in -a normally uses -r; feminine nouns with other endings use the -n series. Thus gender matters, but the noun's final shape determines whether feminine agreement is visible as -r.
| Citation form | Features | Near | Far |
|---|---|---|---|
| gida “house” | masculine singular | gidan nan | gidan can |
| mota “car” | feminine singular | motar nan | motar can |
| mace “woman” | feminine singular, not -a-final | macen nan | macen can |
| motoci “cars” | plural | motocin nan | motocin can |
Macen nan ita ce likitar da muka gani jiya.
This woman is the doctor we saw yesterday.
Motocin can sun zo daga Kano.
Those cars over there came from Kano.
The -n of macen does not turn feminine mace into a masculine noun. Feminine ita and ce still agree with it. Conversely, plural motoci takes -n because Hausa plurals do not preserve the singular masculine–feminine linker contrast.
English gender provides no shortcut. Gida is masculine although it ends in -a; mota is feminine; mace is feminine but gives macen rather than an -r form. Learn the noun, gender, plural, and linked form together.
The written result is one word
In grammatical analysis, gida + -n + nan and mota + -r + can make the pieces visible. In normal boko, the linker joins the noun: gidan nan, motar can. Do not write a hyphen or leave the linker as a separate word.
The same linked family appears with other following dependents, as explained in linking before demonstratives.
The surface form is not always predictable by adding one letter. Final vowels can shorten in speech, and diphthong-final plurals can lose their final element before -n:
| Bare noun | Linked form | Demonstrative phrase |
|---|---|---|
| malamai “teachers” | malaman | malaman nan |
| littattafai “books” | littattafan | littattafan can |
| mutum “person” | mutumin | mutumin nan |
Malaman nan suna jiran ɗalibai a aji.
These teachers are waiting for the students in the classroom.
Littattafan can sun yi ƙura sosai.
Those books over there have gathered a lot of dust.
Ordinary spelling also hides tone and vowel length. In speech, the linker and the different tonal forms of nan/can affect pronunciation and deictic interpretation. Do not create marked forms by guesswork; standard examples correctly remain unmarked.
Nan and can do not show agreement
Post-nominal nan and can remain the same after masculine, feminine, and plural heads. Number and gender are visible on the head's linker and in clause agreement:
Yaron nan yana son tuwo.
This boy likes tuwo.
Yarinyar nan tana son shinkafa.
This girl likes rice.
Yaran nan suna jiran abinci.
These children are waiting for food.
The noun paradigm is lexical: yaro → yara, with linked yaron → yaran. The short form nan does not pluralize. Similarly, changing nan to can changes deixis, not number.
Near nan usually points to something near or salient; far can points farther away. Spoken tone creates finer distinctions involving the speaker, listener, and degrees of remoteness. Because everyday boko does not mark tone, context and gesture may make “this,” “that near you,” “that,” or “that over there” the best English translation.
Short post-nominal forms versus standalone full forms
Full wannan, wancan/waccan, waɗannan, and waɗancan can replace a recoverable noun. Short post-nominal nan/can cannot be substituted mechanically in that independent use.
Wannan ya fi kyau, amma littafin nan ya fi araha.
This one is better, but this book is cheaper.
Waccan ta Amina ce; motar can ta Musa ce.
That one is Amina's; that car over there is Musa's.
In the first halves, wannan and waccan are standalone demonstratives. In littafin nan and motar can, the short item follows an overt linked noun. A bare nan can also be a locative adverb meaning “here/there,” and can can mean “there,” but that is another syntactic use:
Littafin yana nan, amma jakar tana can.
The book is here, but the bag is over there.
Here nan and can are predicates of location, not noun modifiers; no linked noun immediately precedes them.
Definiteness and discourse
A demonstrative phrase is identifiable because it tells the listener which referent to select. The linker before nan/can is therefore not an extra word meaning the. It is the required connective morphology of the post-nominal construction.
Na ga wata mota a bakin hanya. Motar nan ce ta lalace jiya.
I saw a car by the roadside. This is the car that broke down yesterday.
The indefinite phrase wata mota introduces a car. Motar nan then selects that discourse-given car. Hausa reference is distributed across the indefinite determiner, linker, demonstrative, agreement, and context—not a free-standing article system parallel to English a/the.
A short exchange makes the contrast recoverable:
A: Yaran nan ne suka zo? B: A'a, yaran can ne.
A: Were these children the ones who came? B: No, it was those children over there.
Both phrases are plural and therefore use linked yaran. Only nan/can changes, locating one group nearer and the other farther away.
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving the noun bare before nan.
❌ gida nan
Incorrect — the short post-nominal demonstrative requires a linked noun.
✅ gidan nan
This or contextually salient house.
2. Using -n with an -a-final feminine singular.
❌ motan can
Incorrect — feminine mota takes the -r linked form.
✅ motar can
That car over there.
3. Using -r with a plural.
❌ motocir nan
Incorrect — plural motoci belongs to the -n series.
✅ motocin nan
These cars.
4. Combining the full pre-nominal form with a linked noun.
❌ wannan gidan
Incorrect in the basic demonstrative frame — it mixes the two structures.
✅ wannan gida
This house.
5. Treating can as a standalone gendered form.
❌ Can ta fi araha.
Incorrect for ‘that feminine one’ — standalone reference requires the full form.
✅ Waccan ta fi araha.
That one is cheaper.
Key Takeaways
- Full demonstratives precede a bare noun; short nan/can follows a linked noun.
- Masculine singulars and plurals use the -n series; appropriate -a-final feminine singulars use -r, while feminine mace gives macen.
- Short nan/can is invariant; gender and number appear on the linked noun and in clause agreement.
- Standalone wannan/wancan/waccan/waɗannan/waɗancan must not be confused with post-nominal nan/can or locative nan/can.
Related Topics
- Near Demonstratives: wannan and waɗannanA1 — Use wannan with a nearby singular referent and waɗannan with nearby plurals, both before nouns and as standalone demonstratives.
- Far Demonstratives: wancan and waɗancanA1 — Use wancan, waccan, and waɗancan for distant or discourse-remote masculine, feminine, and plural referents.
- Standalone Demonstrative PronounsA1 — Use Hausa demonstratives without an expressed noun while preserving gender, number, distance, and the discourse contrast between the intended referents.
- Linking before DemonstrativesA2 — Form Hausa post-nominal demonstratives with a linked noun before nan or can, and contrast them with full demonstratives before a bare noun.
- Phonological Adjustment at Linker BoundariesA2 — How vowel shortening, diphthong reduction, epenthesis, and consonant assimilation shape Hausa n/r linkers in speech and spelling.
- Omitting -n/-r before Demonstratives and RelativesB1 — Repair bare Hausa head nouns before post-nominal demonstratives and restrictive da-relatives while keeping definite and genitive uses distinct.