Hausa proverbs and legal prose both favor relative clauses, but for different rhetorical reasons. A proverb turns a particular action into a rule about human conduct: wanda ya yi... “whoever does....” A regulation must identify a person, document, property, or circumstance precisely: duk mutumin da ya karya wannan doka “every person who violates this law.” In both genres, the relative is more than da: a headed relative normally has a joined -n/-r linker, and a canonical affirmative relative selects relative TAM.
All unlabelled Hausa is (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). The traditional sayings are marked (proverbial); model provisions are marked (formal/legal). Ordinary boko does not show tone or vowel length, so do not add marks in an attempt to make an old saying look more authoritative.
This page assumes the core relative-clause pattern with da and concentrates on how two specialized genres exploit it.
Proverbs turn a participant into a type
A proverb commonly uses headless wanda “the one who; whoever” because its referent is not one already known man. It denotes any person who meets the condition. The compact subject relative has relative completive ya, not a separate independent assertion.
Wanda bai ji bari ba zai ji oho.
Whoever refuses to heed ‘stop’ will eventually hear ‘alas.’ (proverbial: a person who ignores warning meets the consequences)
Wanda ya riga barci, shi zai riga tashi.
The one who goes to sleep first will be the first to rise. (proverbial)
The first relative is negative: wanda bai ji bari ba. The second uses affirmative relative ya in wanda ya riga barci. The following zai clauses make the consequence. English often uses whoever plus a present tense; Hausa packages the general person in wanda and chooses TAM for the event inside the relative.
Feminine wadda and plural waɗanda are available when a real or imagined referent has those features. The agreement belongs to the headless relative form, not to invariant da after a noun.
Wadda ta san darajar lokaci ba ta ɓata shi.
A woman who knows the value of time does not waste it. (proverb-like generalization; neutral careful style)
Waɗanda suka haɗa kai sukan shawo kan wahala.
Those who unite usually overcome hardship. (proverb-like generalization; neutral careful style)
An overt proverbial head still takes its linker
Proverbial style also uses an overt, semantically broad head. The joined linker remains part of the construction: abin da “the thing that/what,” mutumin da “the person who,” maganar da “the statement that.”
Abin da ba naka ba, ƙaƙa za ka yi kyauta da shi?
How can you give away what is not yours? (proverbial/rhetorical)
Here abi + -n gives abin. The relative contains the nonverbal negative predicate ba naka ba, so no affirmative relative-completive marker appears. The resumptive shi belongs to the later main-clause phrase da shi “with it”; it is not an object copied inside the relative.
Faɗan da ya fi ƙarfinka, sai ka mayar da shi wasa.
When a fight is beyond your strength, turn it into play. (proverbial: withdraw tactfully from a contest beyond you)
Masculine faɗa takes linked faɗan. In faɗan da ya fi ƙarfinka, the head is understood as the subject of ya fi; shi in the consequence clause refers back to the fight and is not a resumptive inside the relative. This distinction matters: reference in another clause is not illegal resumption inside the relative.
Legal heads identify a class exactly
Legal and administrative prose normally prefers an explicit head when the class itself matters. Duk supplies universal force; mutumin supplies the legal category; da opens the condition that selects members of that category.
Duk mutumin da ya karya wannan doka zai biya tara.
Every person who violates this law shall pay a fine. (formal/legal)
Macen da ta cika sharuɗɗan za ta iya gabatar da buƙata.
The woman who satisfies the conditions may submit an application. (formal/legal)
Kamfanonin da suka kasa sabunta lasisinsu za su dakatar da aiki.
The companies that fail to renew their licenses shall suspend operations. (formal/legal)
These show masculine singular mutumin ... ya, feminine singular macen ... ta, and plural kamfanonin ... suka. The plural relative-completive suka is a particularly useful diagnostic: independent kamfanonin sun kasa... would be a new main assertion, not the restrictive condition identifying the companies covered by the provision.
Objects, passives, and impersonal responsibility
Administrative writing frequently makes a document or item the head and leaves its object position empty inside the relative. The internal subject, not the head, controls the subject–TAM marker.
Takardun da mai nema ya miƙa za a adana su na tsawon shekara biyar.
The documents that the applicant submitted shall be retained for five years. (formal/legal)
In takardun da mai nema ya miƙa, mai nema controls ya and takardun is the understood object of miƙa. The later su is the object of adana in the main clause; it does not double the gap inside the relative.
An impersonal relative avoids naming an agent when the result, rather than responsibility for the act, is at issue.
Dukiyar da aka samu ta hanyar zamba za a ƙwace ta.
Property obtained through fraud shall be confiscated. (formal/legal)
Relative aka belongs inside dukiyar da aka samu. The main-clause impersonal za a ƙwace is separate. Repeating similar morphology is not padding: the first clause identifies the property, while the second specifies the legal consequence.
Possessive and locative relations stay visible
English can use whose or where to hide the internal relation. Hausa legal prose usually spells that relation out with a resumptive possessor or locative expression.
Mutumin da aka lalata dukiyarsa yana da ikon neman diyya.
A person whose property has been damaged has the right to claim compensation. (formal/legal)
The suffix -sa in dukiyarsa refers back to masculine mutumin. The property is the grammatical subject of the impersonal damage clause; the person is represented as its possessor.
Gidan da aka aikata laifin a cikinsa zai kasance ƙarƙashin bincike.
The building in which the offence was committed shall remain under investigation. (formal/legal)
Masculine -sa in a cikinsa resumes gidan as the interior location. A direct-object gap is normal in takardun da mai nema ya miƙa, but an oblique spatial relationship often needs a form such as a cikinsa. English where is therefore not evidence that Hausa can simply omit the locative relation.
Relative continuative for standing conditions
Legal definitions often describe an ongoing status, regular activity, or standing qualification. Canonical restrictive relatives then use the relative continuative.
Ma’aikatan da suke kula da bayanan sirri dole su kiyaye dokar tsaro.
Employees who handle confidential information must observe the security rule. (formal/legal)
Hukumar za ta taimaka wa yaran da suke ƙarƙashin kulawar gwamnati.
The authority shall assist children who are under government care. (formal/legal)
Compare the same proposition as an independent statement:
Ma’aikatan suna kula da bayanan sirri.
The employees handle confidential information. (plain independent clause)
Dokar ta shafi ma’aikatan da suke kula da bayanan sirri.
The rule applies to the employees who handle confidential information. (restrictive relative clause)
Plain suna asserts what the employees do. Relative suke embeds that standing activity as the criterion selecting the employees. This is why punctuation or formal vocabulary alone cannot create a relative clause.
Restriction versus a discourse continuation
Most legal relatives are restrictive because a rule must delimit its scope. A nonrestrictive relative instead comments on an already uniquely identified institution or officeholder.
Kwamitin da ya tantance buƙatun zai fitar da sakamako ranar Litinin.
The committee that assessed the applications will issue the result on Monday. (restrictive: identifies which committee; formal)
Kwamitin Tsaro, wanda ya tantance buƙatun, zai fitar da sakamako ranar Litinin.
The Security Committee, which assessed the applications, will issue the result on Monday. (nonrestrictive continuation; formal)
The first has linked kwamitin + da and selects a committee. The second already names Kwamitin Tsaro and uses appositive wanda. Formal punctuation helps readers, but the grammatical contrast is not merely “comma versus no comma.” Speakers vary in the TAM used in appositive relatives; the relative form shown here is standard and unambiguous in the plural where plain and relative forms visibly differ.
Common Mistakes
1. Using a plain plural completive in a legal restriction
❌ kamfanonin da sun karya dokar
Incorrect in the canonical restrictive pattern — sun is plain completive.
✅ kamfanonin da suka karya dokar
The companies that violated the law. (formal/legal)
2. Leaving the linker off an overt head
❌ duk mutum da ya karya doka
Incorrect in the linked-head construction taught here.
✅ duk mutumin da ya karya doka
Every person who violates the law. (formal/legal)
3. Making invariant da agree with the head
❌ macen dar ta cika sharuɗɗan
Incorrect — da does not acquire feminine agreement.
✅ macen da ta cika sharuɗɗan
The woman who satisfies the conditions. (formal/legal)
4. Copying an English direct-object pronoun into the relative
❌ takardun da mai nema ya miƙa su jiya
Incorrect as the neutral object-relative pattern — su duplicates the object gap inside the relative.
✅ takardun da mai nema ya miƙa jiya
The documents that the applicant submitted yesterday. (formal)
5. Omitting a required surface relation
❌ teburin da aka ajiye kwangilar jiya
Incomplete for the intended ‘table on which the contract was placed yesterday.’
✅ teburin da aka ajiye kwangilar a kansa jiya
The table on which the contract was placed yesterday. (formal/legal)
The phrase a kansa expresses the intended surface relation. Conventional place heads such as gida can also license compact locative relatives, so they do not provide a categorical omission error.
Key Takeaways
- Proverbs favor headless wanda/wadda/waɗanda because they generalize over a type of person; do not invent “traditional” wording.
- A headed relative still joins -n/-r to its noun: mutumin da, macen da, takardun da.
- Canonical restrictions use relative suka/suke, not independent sun/suna.
- Direct objects normally leave a gap, while possessive and locative relations commonly remain visible through -sa/-ta/-su or a phrase such as a cikinsa.
- Legal prose uses restrictive relatives to define scope and appositive relatives to add background about an already identified referent.
- The genre may be compact or formal, but it does not suspend the ordinary grammar of linkage, agreement, TAM, and resumption.
Related Topics
- Headless Relatives and Generalizing MeaningsC1 — Use Hausa headless relatives to denote the one, those, what, where, or whoever satisfies a clause.
- Restrictive and Nonrestrictive InterpretationsC1 — Distinguish Hausa relatives that identify a referent from parenthetical relatives that add a discourse comment.
- The Head Noun's -n/-r LinkerA2 — Choose and spell the joined -n/-r form that a Hausa noun head takes before a basic da-relative clause.
- Relative Completive inside Relative ClausesB1 — Build completed Hausa relative clauses with linked heads, invariant da, the relative-completive paradigm, and appropriate gaps or resumptives.
- Resumptive Pronouns in RelativesB1 — Know when a Hausa relative leaves a gap and when a pronoun or possessive suffix must preserve the head noun's grammatical relation.
- Relative Continuative in Relative ClausesB2 — Use Hausa relative-continuative forms in clauses that identify a person, thing, place, or time through an open, habitual, or state-like property.