A locative relative identifies a place through an event or state located there: wurin da muke aiki “the place where we work,” gidan da muka zauna a cikinsa “the house in which we stayed.” Hausa has both compact gap-like patterns with conventional place heads and explicit patterns whose locative phrase contains a resumptive pronoun. English where covers both, so learners must notice what Hausa puts inside the clause.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko preserves ɓ, ɗ, ƙ, ’y without tone or vowel-length notation.
For the basic architecture shared by all these patterns, review relative clauses with da.
Start with a linked place head and da
The compact restrictive frame still requires the head’s -n/-r linker:
Wurin da muke aiki yana kusa da tashar mota.
The place where we work is near the motor park.
Gonar da suke shuka masara tana bayan ƙauyen.
The farm where they grow maize is behind the village.
Dakunan da ake ajiye kayan suna da makulli.
The rooms where the goods are stored have locks.
Masculine wuri appears as wurin, feminine gona as gonar, and plural dakuna as dakunan. The following da is invariant. Relative continuative muke/suke/ake agrees with the subject of the location event—“we,” “they,” or an unspecified actor—not with the place head.
The construction can be represented as:
LINKED PLACE HEAD + da + SUBJECT + RELATIVE TAM + PREDICATE + (LOCATIVE RESUMPTIVE)
Compact place relatives
With high-frequency place nouns such as wuri “place,” gida “house/home,” gari “town,” and ɗaki “room,” Hausa often permits a compact relative without an overt locative phrase when the intended relation is conventional and unmistakable.
Na tuna gidan da muka zauna lokacin muna yara.
I remember the house where we lived when we were children.
Sun koma garin da suka yi karatu.
They returned to the town where they studied.
Wannan shi ne ɗakin da za mu yi taron gobe.
This is the room where we will hold the meeting tomorrow.
The place head is not a direct object of zauna “live/stay” or yi karatu “study.” These are licensed gap-like locative interpretations. With yi taro, the room supplies the setting. Future za mu has no special relative variant, but the linked head plus da still makes the construction relative.
Compactness depends on lexical meaning and conventional usage; it is not permission to delete every preposition. If omitting the spatial relation would produce ambiguity, use an explicit resumptive.
Explicit locative resumption
An explicit spatial phrase can contain a pronoun referring back to the head. The pronoun agrees with the grammatical gender and number of that head.
| Head | Resumptive phrase | Model |
|---|---|---|
| gidan, masculine singular | a cikinsa | gidan da muka zauna a cikinsa |
| gonar, feminine singular | a cikinta | gonar da suke aiki a cikinta |
| dakunan, plural | a cikinsu | dakunan da aka ajiye kaya a cikinsu |
Mun sayar da gidan da kakana ya taɓa zama a cikinsa.
We sold the house in which my grandfather once lived.
An gyara gonar da manoma ba sa iya aiki a cikinta lokacin damina.
The farm where farmers cannot work during the rainy season was improved.
’Yan sanda sun bincika ɗakunan da aka ɓoye kayan a cikinsu.
The police searched the rooms in which the goods were hidden.
Masculine -sa, feminine -ta, and plural -su resume the place head. This is not the redundant doubling rejected in a canonical direct-object relative. A locative relation is prepositional, and the resumptive supplies the complement required by a ciki “inside.”
Other spatial relations behave similarly:
Ga teburin da na ajiye takardun a kansa.
Here is the table on which I put the documents.
Mun wuce garin da baƙin suka fito daga cikinsa.
We passed the town from which the visitors came.
The suffix in a kansa resumes masculine teburin. Daga cikinsa makes source explicit. English can place on which/from which before its relative clause; Hausa normally preserves its own locative phrase inside the clause.
Aspect describes the located situation
Location does not determine TAM. Choose completive for a bounded event, relative continuative for an open or habitual setting, and future for a prospective location.
Na nuna maka wurin da muka haɗu da manajan jiya.
I showed you the place where we met the manager yesterday. (addressing one male)
Wannan ita ce kasuwar da nake sayen kayan miya kowane mako.
This is the market where I buy cooking ingredients every week.
Sun shirya filin da za a gudanar da bikin mako mai zuwa.
They prepared the grounds where the ceremony will be held next week.
Completed muka, open/habitual nake, and future impersonal za a have the same locative relation but different viewpoints. Compare independent Muna sayen kayan miya a kasuwar nan “We buy cooking ingredients at this market.” In the relative, the place moves to the head and affirmative continuative changes from plain muna to relative muke/nake as person requires.
Do not confuse location with direct object
Some verbs can take a place noun as a direct object or as part of their lexical frame. Bi hanya means “follow/take a road,” so hanyar da muka bi contains a direct-object gap. By contrast, hanyar da muka tsaya a kanta “the road on which we stopped” contains a locative resumptive.
Hanyar da muka bi ta fi guntu.
The road that we took is shorter. (direct-object relative)
Hanyar da motarmu ta tsaya a kanta tana da cunkoso.
The road on which our car stopped is congested. (locative relative)
The surface head hanyar is the same, but the verb’s argument structure differs. Do not add a kanta to bi merely because English can say on which we travelled; and do not treat tsaya as though it directly selected the road.
Possessors inside a locative relative
A place head may itself belong to someone. The possessed head’s linker comes before da, while a resumptive locative inside the clause refers to that whole place:
Mun ziyarci gidan Hauwa, wanda ɗalibai suke kwana a cikinsa.
We visited Hauwa’s house, in which the students lodge.
Here masculine wanda and -sa in a cikinsa refer to masculine gida, not to the feminine owner Hauwa. The gender contrast makes the intended antecedent visible.
Wurin da and inda
Wurin da... has linked wuri plus invariant da: literally “the place that/where....” Hausa also has inda, a locative relative expression meaning “where.” It can stand without a separate lexical head and can also follow an overt place noun in wider usage.
Ka ajiye kayan inda yara ba za su same su ba.
Put the goods where children will not find them. (addressing one male)
For a compact basic contrast, compare overt-headed wurin da muke aiki with inda muke aiki. Expressions such as garin inda... or kasuwar inda... also occur, so the presence of an overt place noun does not by itself make inda impossible. Choose the established construction that best fits the register and information structure.
Restrictive and appositive location
The normal examples above are restrictive: they identify which place. An already established place can receive a parenthetical comment with agreeing wanda/wadda (careful speech and writing):
Garin Kano, wanda muka zauna a cikinsa shekara biyu, ya canza sosai.
The city of Kano, where we lived for two years, has changed greatly. (careful speech or writing)
The comment continues the discourse about the already identified city. Masculine wanda and a cikinsa agree with head noun gari. Relative muka is valid; appositive relatives also show speaker variation in TAM. Explicit a cikinsa makes the locative relation clear even though English uses where.
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving a common-noun head unlinked
❌ gida da muka zauna yana kusa
Incorrect compact restrictive frame—gida requires linked gidan.
✅ Gidan da muka zauna yana kusa.
The house where we stayed is nearby.
2. Keeping plain continuative TAM
❌ wurin da muna aiki
Incorrect canonical relative—muna is plain continuative.
✅ wurin da muke aiki
The place where we work.
3. Using the wrong gender in a locative resumptive
❌ gonar da suke aiki a cikinsa
Incorrect—feminine gonar requires a feminine resumptive.
✅ gonar da suke aiki a cikinta
The farm where they work.
4. Treating every place head as a direct object
❌ teburin da na ajiye takardun
Incomplete for the intended ‘table on which I put the documents’—ajiye still needs the location relation.
✅ teburin da na ajiye takardun a kansa
The table on which I put the documents.
5. Using interrogative ina inside a relative
❌ wurin ina muka haɗu
Incorrect—interrogative ina cannot introduce this relative clause.
✅ wurin da muka haɗu
The place where we met.
Key Takeaways
- Begin an overt-headed locative relative with a linked place noun plus invariant da.
- Conventional place heads can license compact patterns such as wurin da muke aiki.
- Use explicit resumptives when the spatial relation must remain visible: a cikinsa/a cikinta/a cikinsu, a kansa, daga cikinsa.
- The resumptive agrees with the place head, while relative TAM agrees with the clause’s subject.
- Aspect describes the located situation; it is independent of whether the role is place, source, surface, or goal.
- Distinguish interrogative ina “where?” from relative da/inda; inda may stand alone or follow an overt place noun.
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Start learning Hausa →Related Topics
- Relative Clauses with da: OverviewA2 — Build basic Hausa relative clauses with a linked noun head, invariant da, and the appropriate relative TAM form.
- Relative Completive inside Relative ClausesB1 — Build completed Hausa relative clauses with linked heads, invariant da, the relative-completive paradigm, and appropriate gaps or resumptives.
- Relative Continuative inside Relative ClausesB1 — Use the relative-continuative series in Hausa relative clauses that express ongoing actions, habits, and state-like properties.
- 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.
- a: At, In, and OnA1 — Use Hausa a to place events and entities in a spatial, temporal, or abstract domain, adding relational nouns when exact geometry matters.
- ina: Asking WhereA2 — Use interrogative ina for location, destination, and source questions with the correct relative, future, or negative TAM form.