Questions & Answers about Silifar tana nan.
Yes, in a very literal sense, that is close to what Hausa is doing. This is normal Hausa grammar.
A full noun such as Silifar can be followed by an agreeing subject marker like tana before the rest of the predicate. So English usually says The slipper is here, but Hausa commonly uses a structure more like The slipper, it is here.
So tana is not unnecessary repetition. It is part of the normal sentence pattern.
Here tana is the feminine singular subject marker. It agrees with Silifar.
In this sentence, tana nan means is here or is present. So tana is not best understood as a standalone translation like only she. Its job here is grammatical: it marks the subject and helps form the predicate.
Because silifa is treated as a feminine singular noun in Hausa, and feminine singular subjects take tana.
Very roughly:
- yana = masculine singular
- tana = feminine singular
- suna = plural
So the agreement word changes depending on the noun class and number of the subject.