Focus and Relative Completive | Hausa Grammar

When a Hausa completive clause follows a fronted focus, it uses the relative completive: neutral Mun sayi mota “We bought a car” becomes focused Mota ce muka saya “It was a car that we bought.” The completive presents the situation as complete or established; the relative member of the paradigm links that situation to the fronted constituent.

For the same markers outside focus, consult the complete relative-completive paradigm.

All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko does not write tone or vowel length, so several singular plain and relative forms look identical on the page. The traditional word relative names a paradigm shared by focus, fronted wh-questions, and relative clauses; it does not mean that every example translates with English who or that.

Plain completive versus relative completive

A neutral clause uses the plain completive. A canonical fronted focus uses the relative completive in its background clause.

Ma’aikatan sun aika rahoton jiya.

The workers sent the report yesterday. (neutral report)

Rahoton ne ma’aikatan suka aika jiya.

It was the report that the workers sent yesterday.

The first sentence asserts the whole sending event. The second normally treats “the workers sent something yesterday” as background and identifies the thing as rahoton. Its structure is:

FRONTED FOCUS + ne/ce + SUBJECT + RELATIVE COMPLETIVE + PREDICATE

The visible sun → suka alternation is the safest written diagnostic. The focus particle belongs to the fronted phrase; suka agrees with the workers and expresses completive aspect in the following clause.

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Do not look for an English word corresponding to -ka. Learn the whole Hausa construction: fronted focus licenses the relative series, while the actual person/number prefix still identifies the subject.

The complete affirmative series

Subject	Plain completive	Relative completive	Focused-object frame
I	na	na	Mota ce na saya.
you, one male	ka	ka	Mota ce ka saya.
you, one female	kin	kika	Mota ce kika saya.
he	ya	ya	Mota ce ya saya.
she	ta	ta	Mota ce ta saya.
we	mun	muka	Mota ce muka saya.
you, plural	kun	kuka	Mota ce kuka saya.
they	sun	suka	Mota ce suka saya.
unspecified actor	an	aka	Mota ce aka saya.

Ordinary spelling visibly distinguishes kin/kika, mun/muka, kun/kuka, sun/suka, an/aka. It does not visibly distinguish the plain and relative values of na, ka, ya, ta, although speech does. Never invent tone accents in an ordinary boko example to compensate.

Wannan rahoton ne kika duba a jirgin?

Was it this report that you reviewed on the train? (to one female)

A nan ne aka ajiye tsofaffin fayilolin.

It was here that the old files were stored.

Subject focus

With subject focus, the focused person controls both the choice of ne/ce and the subject marking in the following clause, but those are still two grammatical positions.

Bello ne ya buɗe shagon da safe.

Bello is the one who opened the shop in the morning.

Zainab ce ta lura da kuskuren.

Zainab is the one who noticed the error.

Mu ne muka kammala aikin kafin ƙarfe shida.

We are the ones who completed the work before six o’clock.

Masculine Bello takes ne, feminine Zainab takes ce, and plural mu takes ne. The following ya/ta/muka is not an unnecessary repeated pronoun. Hausa finite verbal predication requires the subject–TAM complex even when a full noun or independent pronoun is already present.

Subject focus can be hard to spot because a neutral subject also stands first. Compare Mu mun kammala aikin “We completed the work” with Mu ne muka kammala aikin “We are the ones who completed it.” Fronted identification and mun → muka distinguish the second construction.

Object focus and the object gap

In object focus, the object controls ne/ce, but the actor controls the relative completive.

Sabuwar na’urar ce Musa ya saya.

It was the new machine that Musa bought.

Takardun ne Amina ta aika wa manajan.

It was the documents that Amina sent to the manager.

Kujerun ne muka kai ɗakin taro.

It was the chairs that we took to the meeting room.

The fronted object is interpreted at the empty object position after the verb. Do not add ta/su/shi there in the canonical direct-object pattern. The pronoun in Amina ta aika is the feminine subject–TAM form, not an object pronoun referring to takardun.

Some verbs also show a grade-dependent form when their local object is absent. Neutral Mun sayi mota has sayi before its overt object, whereas focus Mota ce muka saya has gap form saya. This is a property of the verb grade and frame, not a general rule that every focused verb must end in -a.

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Object focus can change two places at once: plain TAM becomes relative TAM, and a grade-sensitive verb may take the form required before an object gap. Check each verb rather than guessing from spelling.

Subject and object questions use the same relative series

Start with Ma’aikata sun kawo sabuwar na’ura “The workers brought a new machine.”

Function	Hausa
neutral statement	Ma’aikata sun kawo sabuwar na’ura.
subject question	Su wa suka kawo sabuwar na’ura?
object question	Me ma’aikata suka kawo?
subject focus	Ma’aikatan ne suka kawo sabuwar na’urar.
object focus	Sabuwar na’urar ce ma’aikata suka kawo.
clefted correction	Ba tsohuwar na’urar ba ce suka kawo; sabuwa ce.

Wh-questions normally omit ne/ce: Me ma’aikata suka kawo?, not a mechanical Me ne ...? template. What unifies the question and focused answer is the dependency between the fronted phrase and the clause plus relative suka.

The correction accepts that the workers brought a machine and replaces “the old machine” with “a new one.” It does not simply ask for information, and it does not deny that any machine arrived.

Focus, wh-fronting, and relative clauses form one pattern

Compare the same completed sending event in three environments:

Me suka aika wa manajan?

What did they send to the manager? (fronted wh-question)

Rahoton ne suka aika wa manajan.

It was the report that they sent to the manager. (focus)

Na karanta rahoton da suka aika wa manajan.

I read the report that they sent to the manager. (relative clause)

All three contain relative suka. In the question, an unknown object is linked to the object gap. In focus, rahoton supplies the selected value. In the relative clause, the sending clause identifies which report is meant. This shared paradigm is one of the central organizing principles of Hausa grammar, not three unrelated exceptions.

This page does not claim that focus and relative clauses have identical internal syntax. The useful learner generalization is narrower: these constructions select the same relative-completive series because they establish a dependency on a prominent or modifying constituent.

Completed events, established states, and time

The completive often describes a bounded event:

Jiya ne suka kammala gyaran hanyar.

It was yesterday that they completed the road repair.

But with a state-like predicate, it can receive an English present translation:

Ita ce ta san adireshin.

She is the one who knows the address.

Relative ta does not itself mean “past.” The predicate san presents knowledge as an established state at the relevant reference point. Conversely, jiya explicitly locates completion yesterday. Translate only after combining aspect, predicate type, and time context.

The focus particle carries no tense:

Gobe ne za su aika rahoton.

It is tomorrow that they will send the report.

Future za su, not ne, establishes future time. The future lacks a distinct relative counterpart, so the focus relation remains visible through fronting and ne.

Negation uses its own forms

Positive plain/relative opposition is largely neutralized in the negative completive. Use the standard negative series rather than combining ba with positive suka/muka.

Bello ne bai kawo takardun ba.

Bello is the one who did not bring the documents.

Waɗannan takardun ne ba su aika ba.

It was these documents that they did not send.

The surrounding focus still identifies a participant or object, but polarity selects bai or ba su ... ba. Forms such as ba suka aika ba are not the standard negative-completive paradigm.

A natural dialogue

—Su wa suka duba sabon ofishin? —Injiniyoyin ne suka duba shi. —Me suka gano? —Matsalar wutar lantarki ce suka gano. —Ba matsalar famfo ba ce suka gani? —A’a, wutar lantarki ce ta jawo matsalar. —Yaushe suka gama dubawa? —Jiya da yamma ne suka gama.

—Who inspected the new office? —The engineers inspected it. —What did they discover? —They discovered an electrical problem. —Wasn’t it a plumbing problem that they found? —No, the electricity caused the problem. —When did they finish the inspection? —They finished yesterday evening.

The exchange moves from an open subject question to object identification, correction, and temporal focus. Relative suka recurs because each fronted wh/focus phrase is linked to a completed background clause; feminine matsalar takes ce, while temporal jiya da yamma takes stabilizing ne.

Common Mistakes

1. Retaining a plain plural marker

❌ Rahoton ne sun aika jiya.

Incorrect canonical object focus—sun is plain completive.

✅ Rahoton ne suka aika jiya.

It was the report that they sent yesterday.

2. Dropping the subject–TAM marker

❌ Zainab ce kawo takardun.

Incorrect—ce does not replace feminine subject agreement and completive aspect.

✅ Zainab ce ta kawo takardun.

Zainab is the one who brought the documents.

3. Making the focused object control subject agreement

❌ Motar ce Musa ta saya.

Incorrect—masculine Musa is the subject, so the marker is ya.

✅ Motar ce Musa ya saya.

It was the car that Musa bought.

4. Repeating the fronted direct object

❌ Takardun ne muka aika su wa manajan.

Incorrect canonical object focus—the final su fills the object gap a second time.

✅ Takardun ne muka aika wa manajan.

It was the documents that we sent to the manager.

5. Reading the relative completive as past by definition

❌ Su ne suka san adireshin ofishin.

Incorrect if forced to mean only ‘They were the ones who knew the office address.’

✅ Su ne suka san adireshin ofishin har yanzu.

They are the ones who still know the office address.

Key Takeaways

Fronted completed focus selects na, ka, kika, ya, ta, muka, kuka, suka, aka in its background clause.
Plural muka/kuka/suka visibly contrasts with plain mun/kun/sun; singular boko often hides the contrast.
Ne/ce identifies the focused constituent but does not carry person, aspect, or time.
The focused object controls ne/ce; the actor controls the relative-completive marker.
Focus, fronted wh-questions, and canonical relative clauses share the relative paradigm.
Negative completive and future constructions use their own forms rather than forcing positive relative morphology where the language has no such contrast.

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