Hausa determiners

Hausa has two definite determiners after the noun. The suffix -n, -r̃ after a feminine singular in -a, carries a floating low tone and marks a referent as uniquely identifiable, either mentioned before or inferable from the context: yārò 'boy', yārò-n 'the boy'. The anaphoric ɗîn marks a referent that is always discourse-old and never merely inferable. The specific indefinite determiner is wani (feminine wata, plural wa(ɗan)su). The universals are the distributive kōwànè (feminine kōwàcè) 'every, each', which usually modifies a singular count noun, and the collective duk or dukà 'all', which does not inflect and quantifies singular and plural count nouns and mass nouns alike ([Jag01]). The two-article classification is tentative: a bare noun can also be definite, as rānā 'the sun', and consonant-final loanwords take ɗîn in place of -n ([Sch13]).

Main definitions

• Hausa.Determiners.inventory: the determiners, deriving the .bipartite cell of [Mor21].

References

• [Jag01]
• [Mor21]
• [Sch13]

def Hausa.Determiners.n : Article

The definite suffix -n, for a uniquely identifiable referent.

Equations

• Hausa.Determiners.n = { form := "-n", definiteness := Reference.Definiteness.definite, exponent := Determiner.Exponent.dedicatedMorpheme, uses := {Reference.DefiniteUse.largerSituation} }

def Hausa.Determiners.din : Article

The anaphoric ɗîn, for a discourse-old referent.

Equations

• Hausa.Determiners.din = { form := "ɗîn", definiteness := Reference.Definiteness.definite, exponent := Determiner.Exponent.dedicatedMorpheme, uses := {Reference.DefiniteUse.anaphoric} }

def Hausa.Determiners.wani : Article

The specific indefinite wani.

Equations

• Hausa.Determiners.wani = { form := "wani", definiteness := Reference.Definiteness.indefinite, exponent := Determiner.Exponent.dedicatedMorpheme }

def Hausa.Determiners.kowane : Quantifier

The distributive universal kōwànè 'every, each', masculine.

Equations

• Hausa.Determiners.kowane = { form := "kōwànè", numberRestriction := some Number.singular }

def Hausa.Determiners.kowace : Quantifier

The distributive universal kōwàcè 'every, each', feminine.

Equations

• Hausa.Determiners.kowace = { form := "kōwàcè", numberRestriction := some Number.singular }

def Hausa.Determiners.duk : Quantifier

The collective universal duk 'all'.

Equations

• Hausa.Determiners.duk = { form := "duk", selectsMass := true }

def Hausa.Determiners.inventory : Determiner.Inventory

The determiners.

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

theorem Hausa.Determiners.marking : inventory.markingStrategy = Reference.MarkingStrategy.bipartite

Hausa derives the .bipartite cell.