Grade 4 often presents an action as reaching its endpoint, affecting a whole object, or separating something from a source. This is sometimes called its completive force. The label describes a recurring part of the verb’s lexical meaning; it does not mean that every Grade 4 clause is in completive TAM, and it does not mean that every Grade 4 verb transparently means “finish doing X.” The broader grades-versus-TAM guide keeps those two layers separate.
All examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa) unless marked otherwise. Normal target sentences use ordinary boko; tone and length appear only in the technical overview.
Totality and an endpoint
Several clear pairs contrast an ordinary action with a Grade 4 form that reaches the object’s limit. Grade 1 yanka can mean “cut,” whereas Grade 4 yanke often means “cut through, sever.” Grade 2 saya is “buy,” while Grade 4 saye can be “buy up.” The monoverbs ci “eat” and sha “drink” form Grade 4 cinye “eat up” and shanye “drink up.”
| Less endpoint-focused form | Grade 4 relative | Typical contrast |
|---|---|---|
| yanka | yanke | cut / cut through, sever |
| saya | saye | buy / buy up |
| ci | cinye | eat / eat up, consume completely |
| sha | shanye | drink / drink up |
Yaron ya ci shinkafa kaɗan, ya bar sauran.
The boy ate a little rice and left the rest. (ordinary ci)
Yaron ya cinye shinkafar duka, bai bar kome ba.
The boy ate up all the rice and left nothing. (Grade 4 cinye)
Ma’aikaciyar ta yanka igiyar a wurare uku.
The worker cut the rope in three places. (Grade 1 yanka)
Daga ƙarshe ta yanke igiyar gaba ɗaya.
In the end she severed the rope completely. (Grade 4 yanke)
The endpoint meaning is reinforced by words such as duka, gaba ɗaya, and bai bar kome ba, but those words do not create the grade. Cinye and yanke are attested lexical forms with their own meanings.
Grade 4 can profile separation or removal
A second important tendency is action away from a point or source: separation, deprivation, avoidance, or escape. The exact construction is lexical. Guje can mean “run away from,” sace can express stealing from an affected person, and shige can mean entering and passing on through rather than merely entering.
Yaran sun guje wa karen da ya fito daga gida.
The children ran away from the dog that came out of the house.
Barawon ya sace mata jaka a kasuwa.
The thief stole a bag from her at the market.
Motar ta shige ƙauyen ba tare da ta tsaya ba.
The vehicle passed through the village without stopping.
English often uses particles—away, from, through—where Hausa may lexicalize direction or separation in a grade member plus its conventional complement. No single translation covers all Grade 4 verbs, and wa after guje must be learned as part of that verb’s frame.
Many Grade 4 verbs are simply lexical basics
Traditional accounts call Grade 4 a derived grade, but common verbs such as rufe “close,” bincike “investigate,” ajiye “put away,” gane “understand/recognize,” and gode “thank” do not require speakers to compute a transparent totality meaning each time. They are ordinary lexical items.
Na gane abin da kake nufi yanzu.
I understand what you mean now.
Ta ajiye takardun a cikin aljihun tebur.
She put the documents away in the desk drawer.
Kwamitin ya bincike korafin cikin mako guda.
The committee investigated the complaint within a week.
Mun gode maka da taimakon da ka ba mu.
We thank you for the help you gave us.
Trying to translate all four as “completely understand/put/investigate/thank” would distort real usage. Grade 4’s semantic history and formal pattern remain valuable, but the current lexicon decides what each verb means.
Lexical completion is not completive TAM
Hausa completive TAM is marked in the subject–TAM complex: ya, ta, sun, an, and their paradigmatic relatives. Grade 4 remains Grade 4 under future, continuative, habitual, and subjunctive marking.
Yaran sun cinye abincin.
The children ate up the food. (Grade 4 plus completive TAM)
Yaran za su cinye abincin idan ba mu ajiye shi ba.
The children will eat up the food if we do not put it away. (Grade 4 plus future)
Yaran suna cinye duk abin da aka ajiye a gabansu.
The children keep eating up everything placed before them. (Grade 4 verbal-noun construction)
Kada yara su cinye abincin kafin baƙi su iso.
The children should not eat up the food before the guests arrive. (negative subjunctive)
The future sentence has Grade 4 totality but does not assert that the eating has happened. Conversely, a basic verb can occur in completive TAM without Grade 4:
Yaron ya ci rabin abincin ya bar rabi.
The boy ate half of the food and left half. (completive TAM with basic ci, no totality claim)
This double contrast is essential. TAM tells how the speaker presents the event in time and discourse; grade helps package the lexical event and its participants.
Totality does not guarantee one syntactic frame
Grade 4 contains both transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitive cinye affects an object; intransitive ɓace can describe something becoming completely lost.
Kuɗin ya ɓace daga asusun, ana bincike abin da ya faru.
The money disappeared from the account, and what happened is being investigated.
Makullin ya ɓace gaba ɗaya bayan mun ƙaura.
The key went completely missing after we moved.
No direct object is licensed merely because English associates completion with an affected thing. Valency belongs to the lexical verb.
Form still responds to the object environment
Semantic force does not replace A/B/C/D morphology. With rufe, the same lexical meaning “close/cover” occurs in four frames:
| Frame | Example | Regular spoken property |
|---|---|---|
| A | Ta rufe. | long -e; nothing follows |
| C | Ta rufe ƙofar. | normally short -e; noun object |
| B | Ta rufe ta. | long -e; direct pronoun |
| D | Ta rufe masa ƙofar. | long -e; indirect object |
Da ta gama aiki, ta rufe.
When she finished work, she closed up. (A-form)
Ta rufe ƙofar, amma daga baya ta sake buɗe ta.
She closed the door, but later opened it again. (C then pronoun object of buɗe)
Ta rufe masa ƙofar domin kada hayaniya ta dame shi.
She closed the door for him so that the noise would not bother him. (D-form)
In a technical pronunciation description (academic/pedagogical), A/B/D have H-L-(H) with long -e, while regular C has H-L-(L) with short -e. Ordinary boko does not display the contrast.
The verbal noun does not erase the endpoint meaning
Regular Grade 4 has a weak -wa verbal noun: cinyewa, yankewa, rufewa. The full form occurs with no local object; before an object, the matching B/C/D verb form appears instead, a pattern traditionally described as -wa deletion.
Yana cinyewa a hankali, amma bai gama ba.
He is eating it up slowly, but he has not finished yet. (object understood; full cinyewa)
Yana cinye abincin a hankali.
He is eating up the food slowly. (the C-form appears before the noun object)
The first sentence is especially revealing: Grade 4 can lexically aim at complete consumption while the continuative presents the event as still unfolding and bai gama ba explicitly says it is not finished. Lexical endpoint and actual completion are different layers.
Practice
For each sentence, identify grade meaning and TAM separately. (1) Sun cinye abincin: total-consumption Grade 4 + completive. (2) Za su cinye abincin: the same grade + future. (3) Suna cinye abincin: the same grade + continuative. (4) Sun ci rabin abincin: basic ci + completive, without a whole-object claim. (5) Takardar ta ɓace: intransitive Grade 4 + completive.
Common Mistakes
1. Calling Grade 4 itself a past or perfect tense.
❌ Cinye yana nufin an riga an gama cin abincin ne kawai.
Incorrect—cinye does not itself mark past time and can combine with several TAM constructions.
✅ Za su cinye sauran abincin gobe.
They will eat up the remaining food tomorrow.
2. Assuming completive TAM means total consumption.
❌ Ya ci abincin, saboda haka lallai ya cinye duka.
Incorrect inference—completive ya ci does not itself say that nothing remained.
✅ Ya ci kaɗan, ya bar sauran domin yara.
He ate a little and left the rest for the children.
3. Forcing “completely” into every Grade 4 translation.
❌ Mun gode maka gaba ɗaya.
Misleading mechanical use—ordinary gode simply means ‘thank.’
✅ Mun gode maka da taimako.
We thank you for the help.
4. Giving every Grade 4 verb a direct object.
❌ Takardar ta ɓace ni.
Incorrect—ɓace is intransitive in the intended ‘go missing’ sense.
✅ Takardar ta ɓace tun jiya.
The document has been missing since yesterday.
5. Creating a new -e verb whenever English suggests an endpoint.
❌ Ana iya sauya kowane fi’ili zuwa -e ba tare da koyon kalmar ba.
Incorrect claim—Grade 4 membership and meaning must be attested.
✅ Ka koyi ci da cinye tare da bambancin ma’anarsu.
Learn ci and cinye together with their meaning contrast.
Key Takeaways
- Grade 4 often contributes totality, an endpoint, or separation from a source.
- The tendency is clearest in attested pairs such as ci/cinye, yanka/yanke, and saya/saye.
- Many Grade 4 verbs are lexical basics whose meanings are not compositionally “do completely.”
- Grade 4 is not completive TAM: it freely combines with future, continuative, habitual, and subjunctive constructions.
- Completive TAM can occur with a non-Grade-4 verb without implying a whole-object result.
- Form, valency, and meaning must all be learned with each verb.
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Start learning Hausa →Related Topics
- Grade 4: Core Form PatternB1 — Recognize Grade 4's e-final form, its hidden A/B/C/D contrasts, and its frequent totality or result meaning.
- Grade 4 Verbal NounsB1 — Build regular Grade 4 verbal nouns with -wa and drop -wa correctly before direct and indirect objects.
- Grades versus TAMA2 — Separate a Hausa verb’s lexical grade and object-conditioned form from the preverbal markers that express tense, aspect, and mood.
- Completive Meaning with Active VerbsA2 — Understand how Hausa plain-completive markers present actions, processes, and changes as bounded wholes rather than simply marking past tense.
- 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.
- Grade 3 and Change of StateB2 — Use Grade 3's strong change-of-state tendency without mistaking it for a universal meaning or a productive English-style derivation.