The third-person plural plain continuative marker is suna. It presents what “they” are doing, regularly do, or experience as an open situation: Suna aiki can mean “They are working” or “They work.” The time and the kind of predicate determine the most natural English tense.
All unlabelled forms are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko does not mark tone or vowel length. Suna carries both third-person plural agreement and continuative aspect; it is not an optional pronoun added to an unchanged English-style verb.
Suna in the complete paradigm
| Person | Plain continuative | With zuwa “coming/going” |
|---|---|---|
| 1st singular | ina | ina zuwa |
| 2nd masculine singular | kana | kana zuwa |
| 2nd feminine singular | kina | kina zuwa |
| 3rd masculine singular | yana | yana zuwa |
| 3rd feminine singular | tana | tana zuwa |
| 1st plural | muna | muna zuwa |
| 2nd plural | kuna | kuna zuwa |
| 3rd plural | suna | suna zuwa |
| impersonal | ana | ana zuwa |
Suna jira a ƙofar asibiti.
They are waiting at the hospital entrance.
Suna gyara rufin kafin damina.
They are repairing the roof before the rainy season.
Suna magana da manajan yanzu.
They are speaking with the manager now.
An independent su can make the subject contrastive, but it cannot replace the finite marker.
Su suna aiki da safe, mu kuma muna aiki da dare.
They work in the morning, while we work at night.
Ongoing events, routines, and states
With an immediate time expression, suna commonly puts the listener inside an event in progress.
Yanzu suna sauke kayan daga mota.
They are unloading the goods from the vehicle now.
Ɗaliban suna rubuta jarabawa a babban zaure.
The students are taking an examination in the main hall.
With a frequency expression, the same Hausa marker describes a routine. English normally changes to the simple present.
Suna zuwa kasuwa kowace Litinin.
They go to the market every Monday.
Maƙwabtanmu suna shan shayi tare da yamma.
Our neighbors drink tea together in the evening.
The continuative also occurs with predicates whose natural English equivalents are not progressive.
Suna son su koma gida da wuri.
They want to return home early.
Suna buƙatar ƙarin lokaci domin su gama.
They need more time in order to finish.
English are wanting and are needing would be unnatural here. Hausa aspect must be understood on its own terms: these states are presented as currently holding, not as English progressive morphology.
Time comes from context
Suna does not by itself mean “present tense.” A time phrase or the surrounding discourse can locate the open situation in the past, present, or future.
Jiya da ƙarfe biyar suna jiran jirgin ƙasa.
Yesterday at five they were waiting for the train.
Yanzu suna taro a ofishin shugaban.
They are in a meeting in the director’s office now.
Gobe da wannan lokaci suna tafiya zuwa Sokoto.
At this time tomorrow they will be travelling to Sokoto.
The marker remains suna in all three examples. English chooses were waiting, are, and will be travelling because the adverbial frame changes.
A plural noun subject still needs a marker
A full noun phrase identifies who the participants are, but it does not express continuative aspect. Standard learner production therefore keeps suna after a plural subject.
Yaran suna wasa a bayan gida.
The children are playing in the yard.
Likitocin suna duba marasa lafiya tun safe.
The doctors have been examining patients since morning.
Motocin haya suna tsayawa a wancan gefen titi.
The taxis stop on the other side of the road.
Hausa also licenses a reduced plain-continuative marker na after some overt third-person noun subjects: Yaran na wasa and likitocin na aiki. The reduced construction still has a preverbal aspect marker. It does not license a bare sequence such as yaran wasa. Fully agreeing suna is the clearest A2 production model.
The agreement is grammatical. A coordinated singular subject is plural as a whole:
Amina da Musa suna shirya ɗakin taro.
Amina and Musa are preparing the meeting room.
The predicate follows continuative verbal-noun syntax
After suna, Hausa uses the predicate form selected by the continuative, commonly analyzed as a verbal noun. Compare completive sun zo “they came” with continuative suna zuwa “they are coming/they come.”
Suna cin abincin rana a ƙarƙashin bishiyar.
They are eating lunch under the tree.
Suna sayen kayan miya kafin su koma gida.
They are buying soup ingredients before returning home.
Suna karantawa a ɗakin karatu.
They are reading in the library.
The forms zuwa, cin, sayen, and karantawa illustrate different verbal-noun patterns. Some non--wa forms link to a following noun object with -n, as in cin abinci and sayen kaya. Many weak verbal nouns follow the -wa object pattern, losing -wa before a direct object. There is no universal suffix to attach to every verb.
Suna, suke, and ba sa
Plain suna belongs in neutral statements and yes/no questions. Focus, constituent questions, and relative clauses select relative continuative suke.
Suna neman sabon gida?
Are they looking for a new home?
Ina suke neman sabon gida?
Where are they looking for a new home?
Su ne suke kula da kantin yau.
They are the ones looking after the shop today.
Na san mutanen da suke zaune a gidan nan.
I know the people who live in this house.
Relative suke does not mark past tense. The syntactic frame selects it, while time still comes from context.
The ordinary third-person plural negative continuative is ba sa + predicate, normally without a closing ba.
Ba sa buɗe shagon ranar Lahadi.
They do not open the shop on Sunday.
Yaran ba sa barci yanzu.
The children are not sleeping now.
Ba sa son su jira har dare.
They do not want to wait until night.
Do not preserve affirmative suna inside an English-like not frame. Also distinguish negative completive Ba su zo ba “They did not come,” which uses ba su, a finite predicate, and final ba.
A minimal TAM contrast
Hausa places the main viewpoint distinction before the predicate.
Sun gyara motar jiya.
They repaired the car yesterday. (completive)
Suna gyara motar yanzu.
They are repairing the car now. (continuative)
Za su gyara motar gobe.
They will repair the car tomorrow. (future)
Changing only the lexical expression is not enough. The subject–TAM complexes sun, suna, za su establish the bounded, ongoing, and future viewpoints.
Practice
Choose suna, suke, ba sa, or sun: (1) Yaran _ wasa yanzu “the children are playing now”; (2) Ina _ wasa? “where are they playing?”; (3) _ zuwa nan ranar Lahadi “they do not come here on Sunday”; (4) _ gama aikin jiya “they finished the work yesterday.” Answers: suna, suke, ba sa, sun. Then replace yaran in item 1 with yaron and make the agreement singular: Yaron yana wasa yanzu.
Common Mistakes
1. Dropping the subject–TAM marker after a plural noun.
❌ Ma’aikatan gyara hanya yanzu.
Incorrect — the finite continuative marker is missing.
✅ Ma’aikatan suna gyara hanya yanzu.
The workers are repairing the road now.
2. Using independent su as the finite marker.
❌ Su aiki da safe.
Incorrect — su alone does not encode continuative aspect.
✅ Suna aiki da safe.
They work in the morning.
3. Keeping plain suna in a constituent question.
❌ Me suna sayarwa a nan?
Incorrect in the standard constituent-question construction.
✅ Me suke sayarwa a nan?
What do they sell here?
4. Negating with unchanged suna and final ba.
❌ Ba suna jiranmu ba.
Incorrect for the ordinary negative continuative.
✅ Ba sa jiranmu.
They are not waiting for us.
5. Using completive sun for an event in progress.
❌ Sun gyara motar yanzu.
Incorrect for the intended meaning ‘they are repairing’; sun presents the event as bounded or completed.
✅ Suna gyara motar yanzu.
They are repairing the car now.
Key Takeaways
- Suna is the plain third-person plural continuative marker.
- It can describe an event in progress, a routine, or an open state in a past, present, or future time frame.
- Keep a marker after an overt plural subject: yaran suna…; reduced na is possible in its licensed overt-subject construction, but a bare predicate is not.
- The predicate follows continuative verbal-noun syntax rather than one universal unchanged verb pattern.
- Use relative suke in focus, constituent questions, and relative clauses; use negative ba sa without final ba.
- Contrast sun (completive), suna (continuative), and za su (future) before the predicate.
Related Topics
- Continuative PronounsA2 — Use ina, kana, kina, yana, tana, muna, kuna, suna, and ana for ongoing, habitual, and state-like situations in neutral Hausa clauses.
- Relative Continuative PronounsA2 — Use nake, kake, kike, yake, take, muke, kuke, suke, and ake for ongoing or habitual situations in focus, questions, and relative clauses.
- Negative Subject Pronoun SetsA2 — Distinguish Hausa negative completive, continuative, future, potential, and subjunctive subject patterns instead of applying one universal ba rule.
- Subject Marking after an Overt NounA2 — Keep the required Hausa subject–TAM marker after names and full noun phrases, and make it agree with gender, number, and person.
- Continuative Meaning and Ongoing EventsA2 — Understand how the Hausa continuative gives an inside view of unfolding, repeated, and still-open situations rather than marking one English tense.
- Continuative with -wa Verbal NounsA2 — Form the Hausa continuative with weak -wa verbal nouns and remove -wa when a direct object follows.