Hausa uses the relative completive in the clause left after a constituent has been explicitly singled out in a focus construction: Mota ce suka saya “It was a car that they bought.” The focused phrase and its focus marker identify the alternative being asserted; suka saya presents the background event as complete. This is a constructional pattern, not a special word meaning “did” and not simply a more emphatic past tense.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). The traditional label relative covers more than relative clauses: the same paradigm also appears in constituent focus, fronted constituent questions, temporal clauses, and narrative foreground. Those uses overlap in form but should not be forced into one English tense or one discourse formula.
The complete affirmative paradigm
The relative-completive markers agree with the subject. The table uses saya “buy,” a high-frequency active verb.
| Subject | Marker | Focused-object frame |
|---|---|---|
| 1st singular | na | Mota ce na saya. |
| 2nd masculine singular | ka | Mota ce ka saya. |
| 2nd feminine singular | kika | Mota ce kika saya. |
| 3rd masculine singular | ya | Mota ce ya saya. |
| 3rd feminine singular | ta | Mota ce ta saya. |
| 1st plural | muka | Mota ce muka saya. |
| 2nd plural | kuka | Mota ce kuka saya. |
| 3rd plural | suka | Mota ce suka saya. |
| impersonal | aka | Mota ce aka saya. |
The most visible contrasts with the plain completive are kika/kin, muka/mun, kuka/kun, suka/sun, aka/an. Ordinary boko writes relative and plain na, ka, ya, ta alike even though speech distinguishes the paradigms tonally. Do not invent tone marks in normal examples to remove that written ambiguity.
Sabuwar mota ce muka saya jiya.
It was a new car that we bought yesterday.
Wannan littafin ne kika karanta a jirgin?
Was it this book that you read on the train? (addressing one female)
The time word jiya places the event yesterday; muka itself does not mean “yesterday.” Hausa locates agreement and aspect in the preverbal marker, then lets adverbials and context establish time.
A focused phrase contrasts with alternatives
An explicit focus construction normally places the selected constituent first and follows it with ne or ce, according to the grammatical shape of the focused expression. The following clause contains the relative TAM form.
Musa ne ya buɗe ƙofar.
It was Musa who opened the door.
Aisha ce ta kawo takardun.
It was Aisha who brought the documents.
A kasuwa ne suka haɗu.
It was at the market that they met.
These sentences reject alternatives: not another person, not another person, and not another place. English may use a cleft (it was X that...) or merely strong stress. Hausa makes the relationship visible through word order, the focus marker, and the relative subject–TAM complex.
The focused phrase can itself be the logical subject, but the finite clause still requires its agreeing marker. Aisha does not replace ta in Aisha ce ta kawo takardun.
Plain and focused clauses make different assertions
Compare a neutral report with object focus:
Sun sayi mota.
They bought a car / They have bought a car. (plain neutral report)
Mota ce suka saya.
It was a car that they bought. (car, rather than another thing)
The lexical verb saya is unchanged. The opposition sits before it: plain sun versus relative suka. The focused version typically treats “they bought something” as background and identifies the thing. That background can be already discussed or accommodated as obvious, but speakers do not choose suka in any sentence merely to announce that an event is known.
Subject focus works similarly:
Amina ce ta karɓi saƙon da safe.
It was Amina who received the message in the morning.
Here da safe supplies the time, and relative ta supplies feminine singular agreement plus completive viewpoint. Because plain and relative ta look identical in boko, the focus construction—not spelling alone—reveals the paradigm.
Not every kind of emphasis selects the same form
The relative series is required in the standard fronted, morphosyntactically marked focus pattern illustrated above. It is unsafe to equate every English use of vocal stress with Hausa relative morphology. A speaker can keep ordinary word order and use discourse intonation or an adverb such as sosai without building this fronted focus construction.
Sun gyara motar sosai.
They repaired the car thoroughly. (plain clause; sosai adds degree, not constituent focus)
Motar ce suka gyara, ba babur ɗin ba.
It was the car that they repaired, not the motorcycle.
A polar question also asks whether the entire proposition is true and can retain the plain form. A fronted constituent question or explicit constituent focus has a different syntax. See plain and relative TAM forms for the broader contrast.
Active and stative predicates do not translate alike
With an active verb, the relative completive ordinarily presents a bounded event:
Jiya ne muka kammala aikin.
It was yesterday that we completed the work.
With a stative predicate, the same construction can focus the holder or content of an established state and receive an English present translation:
Ita ce ta san amsar.
She is the one who knows the answer.
Wannan hanyar ce suka fi sani.
This is the route they know best.
Relative ta and suka are therefore not inherently past. The predicate san “know,” comparison, and the current discourse yield a present-state reading. In another time frame, ta san can mean “she knew.” The underlying logic is aspectual: the state is treated as established at the relevant reference point.
Negation has its own completive forms
The positive relative/plain contrast is largely neutralized in the negative completive. Use the negative subject forms inside ba … ba, while the surrounding focus construction remains visible.
Musa ne bai zo taron ba.
It was Musa who did not come to the meeting.
Waɗannan takardun ne ba su kawo ba.
It was these documents that they did not bring.
Aisha ce ba ta san adireshin ba.
Aisha is the one who does not know the address.
Do not manufacture forms such as ba suka ... ba merely because affirmative focus uses suka. Negative bai, ba ta, ba su express polarity and agreement; the focus frame supplies the constructional environment.
Practice
Choose the appropriate form, then check the answer.
- Neutral report: Yara _ sayi lemo. Answer: sun.
- Focused object: Lemo ne yara _ saya. Answer: suka.
- Focused subject: Aisha ce _ rufe shagon. Answer: ta; ordinary boko does not display its tonal contrast with plain ta.
- Focused negative subject: Musa ne _ gama aikin ba. Answer: bai.
- Present stative focus: Su ne _ san hanyar. Answer: suka; English can say “They are the ones who know the way.”
Common Mistakes
1. Keeping the plain plural after explicit constituent focus.
❌ Mota ce sun saya.
Incorrect in the standard fronted focus construction — sun is the plain completive.
✅ Mota ce suka saya.
It was a car that they bought.
2. Dropping the subject–TAM marker after a focused noun subject.
❌ Zainab ce kawo kayan.
Incorrect — the finite clause still needs feminine singular agreement and TAM.
✅ Zainab ce ta kawo kayan.
It was Zainab who brought the goods.
3. Treating every emphatic sentence as the same focus construction.
❌ Suka yi sauri sosai.
Incorrect as an isolated neutral report if suka was chosen only because sosai adds emphasis.
✅ Sun yi sauri sosai.
They were very quick. (plain clause)
4. Reading the relative completive as automatically past.
❌ Ita ce ta san amsar.
Incorrect only if forced to mean ‘She was the one who knew the answer’; the stative predicate can describe current knowledge.
✅ Ita ce ta san amsar.
She is the one who knows the answer.
5. Negating the affirmative relative form mechanically.
❌ Yara ne ba suka zo ba.
Incorrect standard negative-completive form.
✅ Yara ne ba su zo ba.
It was the children who did not come.
Key Takeaways
- Explicit fronted constituent focus selects the relative completive in its following clause.
- The complete positive series is na, ka, kika, ya, ta, muka, kuka, suka, aka.
- Singular na, ka, ya, ta are ambiguous in ordinary boko; the construction identifies their function.
- The lexical verb need not change: plain sun saya contrasts with focused suka saya.
- Focus background often supports a presupposed reading, but relative morphology is not a free-standing “presupposition switch.”
- Negative completives use their negative series, and stative predicates can give present English translations.
Related Topics
- Plain and Relative TAM FormsA1 — Choose plain Hausa completive and continuative forms for neutral clauses, and relative forms for focus, constituent questions, and relative clauses.
- The Hausa Subject–TAM ComplexA1 — Understand the preverbal Hausa forms that express subject agreement together with tense, aspect, mood, and polarity.
- Aspect Rather Than English TenseA1 — Interpret Hausa completive and continuative forms as viewpoints on events, using time words and predicate meaning instead of one-to-one English tense labels.
- Active and Stative Verb InterpretationsA1 — See how a verb's action or state meaning changes the time interpretation of Hausa completive and continuative constructions.
- Completive in Narrative SequencesA2 — Build Hausa event chains with narrative completive forms while separating foreground storyline, neutral reporting, background description, and negation.