Questions & Answers about Yara suna girma da sauri.
What does each word in Yara suna girma da sauri literally mean?
Word by word:
- yara – children (plural of yaro = child)
- suna – they are (more literally: su = they + na = continuous aspect marker, usually written together)
- girma – to grow / to grow up / to become big
- da – with
- sauri – speed
So a very literal gloss is: Children they-are growth with speed, i.e. Children are growing quickly / Children grow up fast.
Why do we have both yara and suna? Isn’t that like saying “children they are…”?
Yes, it looks redundant from an English point of view, but in Hausa it’s normal.
- yara is the noun phrase (the lexical subject).
- suna is a subject pronoun plus aspect marker that:
- shows person and number agreement (3rd person plural),
- carries the continuous/habitual aspect.
In standard Hausa, this pronoun+aspect element is normally required, even if you already mentioned the noun:
- Yara suna girma da sauri. – Children are growing fast.
- Mata suna aiki. – Women are working.
So Hausa tends to have noun + pronoun in the subject slot, where English usually only has one subject word.
What tense or aspect is suna girma? Does it mean “are growing” or “grow”?