Hausa bari has a lexical meaning “leave, stop, allow,” and it also appears in a high-frequency proposal pattern such as Bari mu fara “Let’s begin.” In the full permissive construction, one participant grants or withholds permission and another participant carries out the permitted event: Shugabar za ta bar mu mu tafi da wuri “The manager will let us leave early.” Hausa marks both relationships overtly; it does not copy English let + object + bare infinitive.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Permissive, matrix clause, lower clause, causee, and catenative are (academic) terms. Ordinary boko leaves tone and vowel length unmarked, although those features distinguish some forms in speech.
The full lexical permission frame
The neutral construction has a stable order:
permitter – matrix TAM – bari – permitted participant – lower subject marker – lower verb
Shugabar za ta bar mu mu tafi da wuri.
The manager will let us leave early.
Mahaifiyarsu tana barin yara su yi wasa a tsakar gida.
Their mother lets the children play in the courtyard.
Mai gadi ya bar baƙin sun shiga bayan ya duba sunayensu.
The guard allowed the visitors to enter after checking their names.
In the first example, object mu identifies the people receiving permission, and subjunctive mu identifies the subject of tafi. English uses us once and leaves the subject of leave implicit. Hausa can place two identical-looking forms next to different predicates because they do different jobs.
With an overt noun, the lower subject marker remains:
Mahaifiyarsu tana barin yara su yi wasa a waje.
Their mother lets the children play outside.
Yara does not replace su. The lower clause must still say who carries out yi wasa through its own subject–TAM marking.
Why the lower clause is not an English infinitive
In non-completed contexts, the permitted event normally uses the subjunctive. It is dependent on the permission rather than independently asserted.
Za su bar Amina ta yi magana a taron.
They will allow Amina to speak at the meeting.
Yana barin ɗalibai su yi tambaya bayan darasi.
He allows students to ask questions after the lesson.
Ku bar ta ta gama bayani.
Let her finish explaining. (to several addressees)
The first ta in bar ta is a direct-object pronoun; the second is a subjunctive subject marker. In ordinary boko they look the same, but syntax separates them. With plural participants, bar su su... displays the same two-slot structure.
A completed affirmative can present the permission and the resulting event as accomplished, as in ya bar baƙin sun shiga. Ordinary spelling may conceal the tone differences that separate a third-person subjunctive from other TAM forms. Do not infer the analysis from the letters ya/ta alone; read the whole construction and its time reference.
The permitted participant can be omitted only when context makes it recoverable and the remaining construction is natural. It is safer for learners to state it when two possible actors are present.
Imperative bari as “let me/us/him...”
The specialized imperative form bari commonly introduces an exhortation, proposal, or announced next step. There is no overt permitter before it:
Bari in kira ta yanzu.
Let me call her now.
Bari mu fara taron kafin wutar lantarki ta ɗauke.
Let’s begin the meeting before the power goes out.
Bari ya shigo ya bayyana abin da ya faru.
Let him come in and explain what happened.
These are not shortened versions of a neutral clause with an accidentally missing subject. Bari itself is the imperative-like head, and in/mu/ya marks the person of the proposed event. A following event in the same dependent sequence can also carry subjunctive marking: ya shigo ya bayyana.
The first-person forms often soften self-initiation: Bari in duba can mean “Let me see / I’ll have a look.” Bari mu... proposes joint action rather than asking a third party literally to issue legal permission. Register and situation supply the pragmatic force; the construction is common in (informal and neutral conversation).
The contrast between a special singular command form and person-marked dependent commands is developed in Subjunctive versus Imperative.
Do not confuse this with standalone Bari! “Stop it! / Leave it!” The same lexical history connects them, but the presence of a following subjunctive clause creates the proposal reading.
Negating permission and negating the proposed event
To deny permission, negate the matrix clause:
Shugabar ba za ta bar mu mu tafi da wuri ba.
The manager will not let us leave early.
Malamin bai bar yaran su fita ba.
The teacher did not allow the children to go out.
The closing ba belongs to the matrix negative frame. It follows the whole complement because that complement is within the scope of “not allow.” These sentences do not entail that the departure occurred by some other route; they state only that permission was withheld.
For a negative exhortation, Hausa normally uses the negative subjunctive directly:
Kada mu fara sai kowa ya zauna.
Let’s not begin until everyone is seated.
Adding bari before this is usually unnecessary. The productive negative-subjunctive frame has kada + subject marker + verb and no clause-final ba.
A polar question keeps the neutral constituent order:
Za su bar mu mu shiga yanzu?
Will they let us enter now?
There is no English-style subject–auxiliary inversion and no inserted do. Matrix za su and lower mu retain their Hausa positions.
Focus and topic are not free reordering
Compare a neutral statement with a correction of the permitted group:
Malamin ya bar waɗannan ɗaliban sun shiga ɗakin.
The teacher allowed these students to enter the room. (neutral)
Waɗannan ɗaliban ne malamin ya bari sun shiga ɗakin, ba sauran ajin ba.
It was these students whom the teacher allowed to enter the room, not the rest of the class. (focused permitted group)
The focused noun phrase moves to the left edge with ne. The verb appears in the no-following-object form bari. Relative marking is licensed only in the local matrix domain; singular matrix ya is syncretic in ordinary boko, while the lower completed clause remains absolute sun shiga.
A detached topic is resumed instead:
Waɗannan ɗaliban kuwa, malamin ya bar su sun shiga ɗakin.
As for these students, the teacher allowed them to enter the room.
Here direct object su resumes the topic before the lower clause. Focus uses a gap and relative machinery; topic structure uses resumption and keeps an ordinary assertion.
A discourse that motivates the marked order
Imagine a school guard asking who received permission:
—Malamin ya bar dukan ajin sun shiga ɗakin kwamfuta? —A’a, waɗannan ɗaliban ne ya bari sun shiga. Sauran za su jira a waje.
—Did the teacher allow the whole class to enter the computer room? —No, it was these students whom he allowed to enter. The others will wait outside.
The first speaker proposes a broad group. The reply fronts waɗannan ɗaliban to correct that assumption; the final sentence supplies the contrasting group’s fate. Neutral order would remain grammatical, but it would not mark the correction as directly.
Permission, leaving, and stopping
Because bari is polysemous, a following complement matters. Compare:
Ya bar jakarsa a ofis.
He left his bag at the office.
Ya bar aikin a bara.
He stopped the job last year.
Ya bar Amina ta yi aikin.
He allowed Amina to do the work.
The first has a theme and location, the second an activity that was discontinued, and the third a permitted participant plus a clause. English leave, stop, and let happen to divide these senses differently. Determine the Hausa argument structure rather than choosing from an English gloss alone.
Common Mistakes
1. Omitting the lower subject marker
❌ Shugabar za ta bar mu koma gida da wuri.
Incorrect—the permitted event needs first-person plural subjunctive mu.
✅ Shugabar za ta bar mu mu koma gida da wuri.
The manager will let us return home early.
2. Treating a noun as sufficient subject marking
❌ Yana barin ɗalibai yi tambaya.
Incorrect—ɗalibai still requires plural subjunctive su.
✅ Yana barin ɗalibai su yi tambaya.
He allows students to ask questions.
3. Adding an English-like infinitive marker
❌ Za su bar Amina to yi magana.
Incorrect—Hausa does not insert English to before the lower verb.
✅ Za su bar Amina ta yi magana.
They will allow Amina to speak.
4. Using bare bari without the subject of a proposal
❌ Bari fara taron.
Incorrect for ‘Let’s begin the meeting’—the proposed event needs mu.
✅ Bari mu fara taron.
Let’s begin the meeting.
5. Fronting the permitted group without focus or resumption
❌ Waɗannan ɗaliban malamin ya bar sun shiga.
Incorrect marked order—the fronted phrase lacks a licensed focus or topic relation.
✅ Waɗannan ɗaliban kuwa, malamin ya bar su sun shiga.
As for these students, the teacher allowed them to enter.
Key Takeaways
- Lexical permission uses bari + permitted participant + lower clause; both the object relation and lower subject marking matter.
- Non-completed permission normally selects a subjunctive event: za ta bar mu mu tafi.
- Imperative-like bari in/mu/ya... proposes or announces an action and has no overt permitter.
- Matrix negation with ba ... ba withholds permission; a negative exhortation normally uses kada without final ba.
- Focus leaves a licensed gap and brings relative machinery; a detached topic is resumed by an object pronoun.
Related Topics
- sa Causative ConstructionsB1 — Build indirect causatives with sa, giving both the causing event and the caused event their own Hausa clause structure.
- Control and Subject ReferenceB1 — Track who performs each event in Hausa complement clauses by keeping a subject marker before every finite predicate.
- Subjunctive: Complete Person ParadigmA2 — Learn all nine Hausa subjunctive subject markers and use them in requests, purposes, obligations, proposals, and negative clauses.
- Subjunctive versus ImperativeB1 — Distinguish Hausa's subject-marked subjunctive commands from the special bare imperative available only for affirmative commands to one person.
- Pronoun versus Noun Object SyntaxA2 — Distinguish Hausa noun objects from the direct-object pronoun series, including their position, verb forms, focus patterns, and two-object behavior.