Hausa negates the subjunctive with kada or its contracted form kar before the subjunctive clause: Kada ka fita / Kar ka fita “Don’t go out.” This construction covers direct prohibitions, “should not” directives, negative wishes, reported commands, and avoidance purposes such as “so that … not” or “lest.” It never takes the ordinary clause-final ba.
For comparison with the other polarity patterns, see the negative subject-pronoun sets.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Full kada is neutral in speech and is the clearest choice in careful or formal prose. Kar is a standard, very common contraction (especially conversational/informal) and also appears in ordinary written dialogue. This is a register tendency, not a difference in truth conditions: the two forms introduce the same negative-subjunctive structure.
The complete negative-subjunctive paradigm
Put kada/kar before the subject–TAM marker. The affirmative subjunctive series itself does not change.
| Subject | Affirmative marker | Full negative | Contracted negative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st singular | in | kada in tafi | kar in tafi |
| 2nd masculine singular | ka | kada ka tafi | kar ka tafi |
| 2nd feminine singular | ki | kada ki tafi | kar ki tafi |
| 3rd masculine singular | ya | kada ya tafi | kar ya tafi |
| 3rd feminine singular | ta | kada ta tafi | kar ta tafi |
| 1st plural | mu | kada mu tafi | kar mu tafi |
| 2nd plural | ku | kada ku tafi | kar ku tafi |
| 3rd plural | su | kada su tafi | kar su tafi |
| impersonal | a | kada a tafi | kar a tafi |
Kada ka taɓa wayar da hannunka a jike.
Do not touch the wire while your hand is wet. (to one man)
Kar ki manta da takardarki.
Don’t forget your document. (to one woman; conversational)
Kada ku tsaya kusa da ƙofar.
Do not stand near the door. (to a group)
Kada mu yanke hukunci kafin mu ji ɓangarorin biyu.
Let’s not make a decision before hearing both sides.
The negative force belongs to kada/kar. Ka, ki, ku, mu still mark the person, number, gender where relevant, and subjunctive mood.
Where kada and kar stand
With a pronominal subject, the order is straightforward:
kada/kar + marker + verb
With an overt noun subject, kada/kar comes before the noun phrase, and the agreeing marker follows the noun:
Kada yaran su yi wasa kusa da rijiya.
The children should not play near the well.
Kar Musa ya buɗe akwatin tukuna.
Musa should not open the box yet. (conversational)
The neutral patterns are kada yara su… and kar Musa ya…. Neither the noun nor the negative particle replaces the subject–TAM marker. The noun identifies the actor; su/ya constructs the finite subjunctive clause.
Full kada and contracted kar have the same syntactic distribution in the core standard construction. In rapid speech, the final consonant of kar may assimilate to the next consonant, yielding pronunciations conventionally represented by forms such as kam mu, kak ki, kas su, or kay yara. These are descriptions of connected speech, not the spellings to imitate in careful Standard Hausa prose. Write kar mu, kar ki, kar su, kar yara unless deliberately representing colloquial pronunciation.
Direct prohibitions
Hausa has a special bare imperative only for affirmative commands to one person. A negative command—singular or plural—uses the negative subjunctive.
Ka buɗe taga.
Open the window. (affirmative subjunctive command to one man)
Kada ka buɗe taga.
Do not open the window. (negative command to one man)
Ku kawo kujerun nan.
Bring these chairs. (affirmative command to a group)
Kar ku kawo kujerun nan tukuna.
Don’t bring these chairs yet. (conversational)
The negative is not built by adding ba to an affirmative imperative. It selects its own mood-sensitive construction.
Third-person, impersonal, and reported directives
The same frame extends beyond the addressee:
Kada su shiga har sai an kira su.
They should not enter until they are called.
Kada a ajiye kaya a nan.
Goods should not be left here.
Likita ya ce kada Amina ta sha maganin kafin ta ci abinci.
The doctor said Amina should not take the medicine before eating.
A is the impersonal subjunctive marker; the responsible individual is left unspecified. In the reported directive, kada introduces the content of what the doctor said, and named feminine subject Amina is followed by ta.
English may translate these examples with must not, should not, or a passive. Those English choices do not create different Hausa tenses. The Hausa construction continues to be negative subjunctive.
Avoidance purpose and “lest”
After domin/don, the negative subjunctive presents an outcome that the main action is intended to prevent.
Na rufe tagar domin kada ƙura ta shiga.
I closed the window so that dust would not get in.
Ta sa wayarta a shiru don kar ta tada jaririn.
She put her phone on silent so that she would not wake the baby. (conversational)
The avoided event is not asserted as fact. It is inside the purpose relation. Full kada is often clearer in careful expository prose; don kar is entirely ordinary in conversation. There is no categorical rule that kada means “should not” while kar means “lest”: syntax and context supply the reading, not the contraction itself.
Negative wish and apprehension
In a prayer or anxious wish, kada can be rendered “may … not” or “I hope … does not.”
Kada Allah ya sa mu rasa hanya.
May God not let us lose our way.
Kada ruwan sama ya lalata amfanin gonar.
May the rain not ruin the crops.
These are not factual denials. The speaker seeks to prevent or rejects the prospect of the event. Longer invocations can be (formal/religious), but the grammar is the same negative subjunctive.
Contrast with factual negation
The nearest competitor is not one universal Hausa word for not. Different TAM constructions select different negative patterns.
Ba su fita jiya ba.
They did not go out yesterday. (negative completive fact)
Ba sa fita da dare.
They do not usually go out at night. (negative continuative/habitual reading)
Kada su fita yau da dare.
They should not go out tonight. (negative directive)
The first sentence has ba … ba around a negative-completive clause. The second has negative-continuative ba sa and no final ba. The third has kada + subjunctive and also no final ba. English uses did not, do not, and should not; Hausa chooses a polarity pattern together with TAM and mood.
Time adverbs reinforce the intended readings but do not determine the form alone. Jiya supports a completed factual denial. Yau da dare locates the future realization of a present prohibition; it does not turn su fita into future za su fita.
No relative negative-subjunctive series
The subjunctive does not alternate between plain and relative markers. A focused or questioned surrounding clause can contain relative TAM, while the prohibited event remains kada/kar + subjunctive:
Me kake son kada yara su taɓa?
What do you want the children not to touch? (to one man)
Kake is relative continuative because me is questioned. Inside the complement, kada yara su taɓa is negative subjunctive. Do not replace su with a relative completive or relative continuative marker.
Active and stative predicates
The construction can prohibit an action or reject a state:
Kar ka ɗaga akwatin kai kaɗai.
Don’t lift the box by yourself. (conversational)
Kada su manta cewa taron zai fara da wuri.
They should not forget that the meeting will start early.
Ɗaga names a deliberate action; manta concerns a mental state or change of state. Kada/kar does not force one aktionsart. It scopes over the projected event or state, while the predicate supplies its lexical interpretation.
Practice
Build each negative subjunctive with correct agreement.
- To one female, “Don’t close the door”: Kada ki rufe ƙofar.
- To a group, conversational “Don’t be late”: Kar ku makara.
- “The workers should not leave now”: Kada ma’aikatan su tafi yanzu.
- Impersonal “The machine should not be used today”: Kada a yi amfani da na’urar yau.
- Avoidance purpose: “He lowered his voice so that the child would not wake”: Ya rage murya domin kada yaron ya farka.
Common Mistakes
1. Adding a closing ba
❌ Kada ku bar ɗakin ba.
Incorrect — negative subjunctive is not the ba…ba frame.
✅ Kada ku bar ɗakin.
Do not leave the room. (to a group)
2. Dropping the subject marker
❌ Kada yara yi wasa a nan.
Incorrect — plural yara must be followed by subjunctive su.
✅ Kada yara su yi wasa a nan.
The children should not play here.
3. Putting kada inside an ordinary negative frame
❌ Ba kada ya zo ba.
Incorrect — two different negation constructions have been combined.
✅ Kada ya zo yau.
He should not come today.
4. Using future because English implies later time
❌ Kada za su fita yau da dare.
Incorrect — kada selects the subjunctive marker, not future za su.
✅ Kada su fita yau da dare.
They should not go out tonight.
5. Treating kada and kar as different moods
The rule “use kar only for ‘don’t’ but kada only for ‘lest’” is false. The full and contracted forms can occur in the same functions; register and context guide the choice.
✅ Kada ka fita yanzu.
Don’t go out now. (full form)
✅ Ta rufe ƙofar don kar sanyi ya shiga.
She closed the door so that cold air would not get in. (conversational)
Key Takeaways
- Use kada/kar + subjunctive marker + verb for negative subjunctive meanings.
- Full kada is neutral and especially clear in careful prose; kar is a very common conversational contraction, not a different mood.
- With a noun subject, use kada/kar + noun + agreement: kada yara su….
- The construction covers prohibitions, negative directives, wishes, reported commands, and avoided purposes.
- It never takes clause-final ba and never selects future za after kada/kar.
- Rapid assimilated pronunciations of kar belong to connected speech; keep standard word division in careful writing.
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Start learning Hausa →Related Topics
- Subjunctive PronounsA2 — Use the low-tone Hausa subjunctive series in commands, wishes, purpose clauses, necessity expressions, and dependent event sequences.
- Negative Subject Pronoun SetsA2 — Distinguish Hausa negative completive, continuative, future, potential, and subjunctive subject patterns instead of applying one universal ba rule.
- 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.
- 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.
- Active and Stative Verb InterpretationsA1 — See how a verb's action or state meaning changes the time interpretation of Hausa completive and continuative constructions.