Established Grade 5 verbs normally form a weak verbal noun in -wa: sayar → sayarwa “selling,” tsayar → tsayarwa “stopping something,” fitar → fitarwa “taking out,” and sanar → sanarwa “informing; notification.” The suffix belongs to verbal-noun morphology, not to causation itself. Grade 5 meaning and argument structure are already present in sayar, tsayar, fitar, sanar.
The broader verbal-noun and grade guide explains the strong/weak distinction across the whole verb system.
All unlabelled examples are (neutral Nigerian Standard Hausa). Ordinary boko writes ɓ, ɗ, ƙ, ’y but not tone or vowel length. In a technical description, the finite Grade 5 long form has all-high tone and -ar; the pages here keep ordinary forms unmarked.
The productive weak pattern
Grade 5 belongs to the large set of Hausa verb classes that commonly permit the weak -wa verbal noun. With no local direct object after it, retain the complete verbal noun.
| Established Grade 5 verb | Core meaning | Weak verbal noun |
|---|---|---|
| sayar | sell | sayarwa |
| tsayar | bring to a stop | tsayarwa |
| fitar | take/remove out | fitarwa |
| koyar | teach | koyarwa |
| sanar | inform, notify | sanarwa |
Sayarwa ba ta da sauƙi idan kasuwa ta yi tsit.
Selling is not easy when the market is quiet.
Tsayarwa a nan na iya jawo cunkoso.
Stopping something here may cause congestion.
Sanarwa da wuri ta taimaka wa ma’aikata su shirya.
Giving notice early helped the workers prepare.
These verbal nouns can head noun phrases, serve as subjects or complements, and supply the lexical predicate in a continuative construction. English may translate them with selling, to notify, or an ordinary noun such as notification. Hausa morphology does not change simply because English chooses a different translation.
In the continuative, -wa appears only without a local object
Weak verbal nouns lose -wa before a local direct object. Grade 5’s long construction then keeps da before that object. This produces the very common continuative sequence subject–TAM + Grade 5 stem + da + object.
Bala yana sayarwa yau, amma ba zai buɗe shagon gobe ba.
Bala is selling today, but he will not open the shop tomorrow. (no stated object)
Bala yana sayar da kayan makaranta a kasuwa.
Bala sells school supplies at the market. (noun object)
Bala yana sayar da su a farashi mai rahusa.
Bala is selling them at a low price. (pronoun object)
The deletion is local: sayarwa is licensed when no direct object is attached to this verbal noun, even if the wider sentence contains other phrases. Before da kayan makaranta or da su, the object construction licenses sayar, not *sayarwa.
The four finite environments remain useful for recognizing the verb’s valency:
| Environment | Finite example with sayar | What follows |
|---|---|---|
| no following object | Ya sayar. | nothing; object understood or absent |
| noun direct object | Ya sayar da motar. | da + noun |
| direct-object pronoun | Ya sayar da ita. | da + independent pronoun |
| indirect object | Ya sayar masa da motar. | beneficiary, then the thing sold |
In the continuative, compare yana sayarwa, yana sayar da motar, yana sayar da ita, and yana sayar masa da motar. The same lexical Grade 5 verb underlies all four, but -wa belongs only to the no-local-object verbal-noun form.
A beneficiary does not turn da into an English “and”
An indirect object can precede the semantic direct object. The exact usefulness of that frame depends on the verb and situation; a D-form slot does not manufacture a natural beneficiary for every lexeme.
Aisha tana sayar mini da tsohuwar kujerarta.
Aisha is selling her old chair for me / on my behalf.
Direban yana tsayar mana da motar kusa da ƙofar asibiti.
The driver is stopping the car for us near the hospital gate.
Here mini/mana are fused indirect-object forms. The following da motar belongs to the Grade 5 long object construction. It is not coordination “with the car.” Learn the entire attested frame and its participant roles.
The base verb and the derived verb have separate verbal nouns
Grade derivation changes the lexical event before verbal-noun syntax applies. Grade 2 saya “buy” has the strong verbal noun saye; its established Grade 5 relative sayar “sell” has weak sayarwa. Likewise, Grade 3 fita “go out” and Grade 5 fitar “take out” do not share one verbal noun.
Amina tana sayen tumatir daga manomi.
Amina is buying tomatoes from a farmer. (Grade 2 strong verbal noun)
Amina tana sayar da tumatir a rumfarta.
Amina sells tomatoes at her stall. (Grade 5 weak verbal-noun stem before an object)
Yara suna fita daga aji ɗaya bayan ɗaya.
The children are going out of the classroom one by one. (basic intransitive verb)
Malam yana fitar da yara daga aji ɗaya bayan ɗaya.
The teacher is taking the children out of the classroom one by one. (derived transitive verb)
English often obscures the structural difference because going out and taking out can both contain out. Hausa distinguishes valency and lexical grade: fita has the mover as subject, while fitar da introduces an external agent and an affected participant.
Lexical action nouns need separate entries
A productive weak verbal noun may also become an ordinary lexical noun. Sanarwa can mean the action “informing” and the countable result “an announcement/notice.” Gargaɗi “warning” likewise illustrates that a related action noun need not be the productive -wa form predicted from a finite spelling.
An liƙa sanarwa a ƙofar makaranta.
A notice was posted on the school gate.
Gwamnati tana sanar da jama’a sabbin matakan.
The government is informing the public of the new measures.
The first sanarwa is an ordinary noun and can be counted or modified. In the second, sanar is the weak verbal-noun stem in a continuative predicate before its object. Shared history does not make the two syntactic uses identical.
Productivity has lexical limits
Grade 5 formation is not an unrestricted operation on every Hausa verb. Even where an -ar form is imaginable, speakers may not use it, or its actual meaning may have become specialized. The verbal noun therefore inherits both the possibilities and the gaps of the finite lexeme.
Do not invent forms such as “base + -arwa” from English. Verify that the Grade 5 verb exists, learn whether it uses the long -ar da, a short construction, or another lexicalized pattern, and then learn its verbal noun. This is honest difficulty: grade membership offers a powerful tendency, not a complete dictionary.
Practice
Complete the continuative frame. (1) yana sayarwa when nothing follows; (2) yana sayar da littafi before a noun object; (3) yana sayar da shi before a masculine pronoun; (4) yana sayar mata da littafi with a beneficiary. Then explain the contrast between tana sayen kaya “she is buying goods” and tana sayar da kaya “she is selling goods”: the first uses the strong Grade 2 verbal noun saye, while the second uses the object form of weak Grade 5 sayarwa.
Common Mistakes
1. Keeping -wa before the Grade 5 object construction.
❌ Yana sayarwa da kayan makaranta.
Incorrect for the intended continuative—weak -wa drops before the local object.
✅ Yana sayar da kayan makaranta.
He sells school supplies.
2. Replacing Grade 5 da with a genitive linker.
❌ Tana sayarin tumatir a kasuwa.
Incorrect invented strong-verbal-noun construction.
✅ Tana sayar da tumatir a kasuwa.
She sells tomatoes at the market.
3. Reusing the basic verb’s strong verbal noun.
❌ Yana sayen motarsa.
Wrong for ‘he is selling his car’; this means he is buying his car.
✅ Yana sayar da motarsa.
He is selling his car.
4. Treating every -wa noun as transparently eventive.
❌ Sanarwar tana sanar da mutane.
Incorrect intended analysis—the first word is a definite noun ‘the announcement,’ not a continuative predicate.
✅ An karanta sanarwar a taron.
The announcement was read at the meeting.
5. Manufacturing a Grade 5 verb because English has ‘make.’
❌ Ana iya ƙara arwa ga kowane fi’ili domin a sami ma’anar ‘causing.’
Incorrect claim—Grade 5 derivation and its verbal nouns are lexically restricted.
✅ Ana sayar da mangwaro a bakin hanya.
Mangoes are sold by the roadside. (established sayar)
Key Takeaways
- Established Grade 5 verbs regularly permit weak -wa verbal nouns.
- Keep -wa with no local direct object; drop it before Grade 5 da + object.
- Basic and derived relatives have separate meanings and verbal nouns: saye versus sayarwa.
- A productive verbal noun may develop an ordinary lexical-noun use, as with sanarwa “notice.”
- Grade 5 is patterned but not freely productive, so verify the finite verb before forming its verbal noun.
Related Topics
- Verbal Nouns and Grade MembershipA2 — Use Hausa verb grades to anticipate verbal-noun patterns while learning the strong, weak, and sometimes multiple forms each lexical verb actually permits.
- Continuative with -wa Verbal NounsA2 — Form the Hausa continuative with weak -wa verbal nouns and remove -wa when a direct object follows.
- Dropping -wa before a Direct ObjectA2 — Know when a continuative -wa verbal noun loses -wa before a local direct object and when -wa returns because no object follows it.
- The Three Object EnvironmentsA2 — Choose Hausa verb forms by whether no object, a noun direct object, or a direct-object pronoun immediately follows, while treating indirect objects separately.
- Grade 2 Verbal NounsB1 — Learn Grade 2 strong verbal nouns as lexical forms and use their genitive-style objects correctly in continuative and nominal constructions.