Hausa uses the subjunctive both as a direct command or exhortation and inside a report of what someone was told or asked to do. Ku shiga can directly mean “Come in, all of you,” while Na ce su shiga means “I said they should come in.” The person marker belongs to the commanded event, not to an English tense.
All unlabelled forms are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko does not mark tone or vowel length. Politeness comes from wording, voice, relationship, and expressions such as don Allah, not from a separate “polite subjunctive” paradigm.
The complete subjunctive command series
| Person addressed or directed | Marker | With jira “wait” | Typical force |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st singular | in | in jira | let me wait |
| 2nd masculine singular | ka | ka jira | wait (one male) |
| 2nd feminine singular | ki | ki jira | wait (one female) |
| 3rd masculine singular | ya | ya jira | let him wait |
| 3rd feminine singular | ta | ta jira | let her wait |
| 1st plural | mu | mu jira | let us wait |
| 2nd plural | ku | ku jira | wait (group) |
| 3rd plural | su | su jira | let them wait |
| impersonal | a | a jira | let there be waiting / one should wait |
Don Allah, ka rufe ƙofar a hankali.
Please close the door quietly. (to one male)
Ki ajiye jakar a nan, don Allah.
Please put the bag here. (to one female)
Ku shigo mu fara taron.
Come in, all of you, and let us start the meeting.
The subjunctive presents the requested event as subsequent to and dependent on the act of requesting. That dependency is why “subjunctive” is a better guide than an English tense name.
Direct commands beyond second person
Second-person singular Hausa also has bare imperative forms, whose exact stem behavior belongs with verb morphology. The subjunctive is a productive alternative for singular commands and the normal resource for plural, first-person, and third-person exhortations.
Mu duba jadawalin kafin mu yanke shawara.
Let’s check the schedule before we decide.
Ya shigo ya zauna a nan.
Let him come in and sit here.
Su kawo takardun kafin ƙarfe biyu.
Let them bring the documents before two o’clock.
A sanar da kowa kafin taron.
Let everyone be informed before the meeting. (formal/impersonal instruction)
The impersonal a is common in (formal) notices, procedures, and institutional instructions because it avoids naming a particular agent. The other examples are neutral in ordinary speech.
Reported commands and requests
After ce wa “tell,” umarci/umarta “order,” and roƙa “ask, request,” the content of the directive commonly appears as a subjunctive clause.
Ta ce mini in jira ta a ƙofar banki.
She told me to wait for her at the bank entrance.
Na umurce shi ya zauna a ofishin har na dawo.
I ordered him to remain in the office until I returned.
Mun roƙe ku ku aiko da amsar kafin Juma’a.
We asked you all to send the answer before Friday.
Shugabar ta roƙi ma’aikatan su rage hayaniya.
The chairwoman asked the employees to reduce the noise.
The object of the reporting verb and the subject of the commanded event may refer to the same person, but each has its own grammatical role. In ta ce mini in jira, mini is the recipient “to me,” while in is the subject of “wait.” In mun roƙe ku ku aiko, the first ku is the people asked; the second is subjunctive agreement on “send.”
An overt noun likewise requires agreement:
Malam ya ce wa ɗaliban su buɗe littafansu.
The teacher told the students to open their books.
Malam ya ce wa ɗaliban buɗe wrongly drops su. English has an infinitival the students to open; Hausa has a person-marked dependent clause.
Directed actions and states
A directive can target an action or a state that someone is to enter or maintain. The subjunctive marker is the same in both cases; the lexical predicate and context supply the difference.
Ta ce musu su kasance a shirye da ƙarfe tara.
She told them to be ready at nine o’clock. (requested state)
Here su kasance is not a prediction that they will be ready. It presents readiness as the content of the instruction, just as su kawo takardun presents bringing documents as the instructed action.
Sequences of commanded actions
Each lexical verb in a directive sequence receives its own subject marker. Hausa does not simply coordinate a string of bare verbs with English and.
Ku shiga, ku zauna, ku saurara da kyau.
Come in, sit down, and listen carefully, all of you.
Ka ɗauki takardar, ka rubuta sunanka, ka ba ni ita.
Take the paper, write your name, and give it to me. (to one male)
The verb ba “give” exceptionally uses recipient ni here: ka ba ni ita. Do not replace it with ordinary fused dative mini. By contrast, ka saya mini littafi means “buy a book for me.”
The repeated markers show that each event is part of the directive chain. In narrative contexts similar short forms can occur for other discourse reasons; do not call every written ka/ta/su an imperative without examining what licenses it.
Negative commands and requests
Negative subjunctive uses kada before the subject and takes no closing ba. Kar is a common contracted form in (informal spoken) Hausa; kada is the safest neutral form for careful speech and writing.
Kada ka buɗe saƙon har sai na dawo.
Do not open the message until I return. (to one male)
Kada ki manta da makullin.
Do not forget the key. (to one female)
Kada ku tsaya a bakin hanya.
Do not stand at the roadside. (to a group)
Na roƙe su kada su yi hayaniya.
I asked them not to make noise.
With an overt noun subject, kada precedes the noun:
Ka gaya musu kada yaran su fita da dare.
Tell them that the children must not go out at night.
There is no final ba after fita da dare. Negative subjunctive is structurally different from negative future ba za su fita ba.
Request, order, and prediction
The same event can be presented as a directive or as a forecast. Compare the preverbal form rather than translating English will mechanically.
Ka dawo gobe da safe.
Come back tomorrow morning. (directive to one male)
Za ka dawo gobe da safe.
You will come back tomorrow morning. (prediction or commitment)
Na ce ya kawo motar yau.
I said he should bring the car today. (reported directive)
Na ce zai kawo motar yau.
I said that he would bring the car today. (reported prediction)
The contrast ya kawo versus zai kawo changes the relation to na ce: commanded content versus future report. The lexical verb remains kawo.
Questions and plain–relative distribution
The subjunctive does not acquire a special relative series in a question about a command.
Me suka ce ka kawo gobe?
What did they say you should bring tomorrow? (to one male)
Wa shugabar ta ce ya jagoranci taron?
Who did the chairwoman say should chair the meeting?
Ka and ya remain subjunctive because they mark the commanded acts. Do not substitute a relative completive merely because me or wa is fronted. The relevant distinction is explained in Plain and Relative TAM Forms.
Practice
Turn the neutral instruction rufe ƙofa into requests to one male, one female, and a group; then report each request after Na ce ….
Ka rufe ƙofa, don Allah.
Please close the door. (one male)
Ki rufe ƙofa, don Allah.
Please close the door. (one female)
Ku rufe ƙofa, don Allah.
Please close the door. (group)
Na ce musu su rufe ƙofa kafin su fita.
I told them to close the door before they left.
Common Mistakes
1. Using one form for every addressee.
❌ Ka jira nan.
Incorrect if addressed to one female; ka is masculine singular.
✅ Ki jira nan.
Wait here. (to one female)
2. Copying an English infinitive after a reporting verb.
❌ Na ce wa Musa kawo takardun.
Incorrect — the reported command needs subjunctive agreement.
✅ Na ce wa Musa ya kawo takardun.
I told Musa to bring the documents.
3. Adding ba to a negative command.
❌ Kada ku fita yanzu ba.
Incorrect — negative subjunctive with kada has no closing ba.
✅ Kada ku fita yanzu.
Do not go out now. (to a group)
4. Confusing a reported command with a future report.
❌ Na umurce shi zai jira ni.
Incorrect for ‘I ordered him to wait’; zai makes an independent future claim.
✅ Na umurce shi ya jira ni.
I ordered him to wait for me.
5. Dropping markers in a command sequence.
❌ Ku shiga, zauna, saurara.
Incorrect as a standard plural directive chain; the later verbs lack subject marking.
✅ Ku shiga, ku zauna, ku saurara.
Come in, sit down, and listen, all of you.
Key Takeaways
- The subjunctive makes direct commands across persons and is essential for plural, first-person, and third-person exhortations.
- Reported commands and requests take a person-marked subjunctive clause rather than an English-style infinitive.
- Every verb in a directive sequence normally has its own marker.
- Negative commands use kada + subject + subjunctive with no final ba.
- Kar is a common informal spoken contraction; kada is neutral and clear.
- Subjunctive reports a directive, while za future reports a prediction or commitment.
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Start learning Hausa →Related Topics
- The Hausa Subject–TAM ComplexA1 — Understand the preverbal Hausa forms that express subject agreement together with tense, aspect, mood, and polarity.
- The Lexical Verb versus the Preverbal MarkerA1 — Separate the Hausa word that names an event from the preverbal complex that expresses subject agreement and TAM.
- 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.
- Completive in Narrative SequencesA2 — Build Hausa event chains with narrative completive forms while separating foreground storyline, neutral reporting, background description, and negation.
- Future with za: Core UsesB1 — Use the Hausa za future for intentions, predictions, commitments, and situations later than a contextually relevant time.