Hausa gender

Hausa has two genders, masculine and feminine, operative only in the singular: yārò 'boy' is masculine and yārinyā̀ 'girl' feminine, while the plural yârā 'children' has no gender. Nouns for people and large animals take the gender of the referent's sex; for the rest gender is lexically specific, turmī 'mortar' masculine and wuƙā 'knife' feminine.

Most native feminine nouns end in -ā, as rìgā 'gown', but the ending does not assign gender. Some hundred feminines end otherwise, among them the old native word màcè 'woman', and over 250 of some 3,000 masculine nouns end in -ā: native stems such as kadā̀ 'crocodile' and ùbā 'father', loanwords, and erstwhile plurals such as gidā 'house'. The correlation is historical: feminine nouns acquired the ending by overt characterization, the addition of the feminine suffix {-ā} to words that were already feminine ([New00]).

Main definitions

• Hausa.Noun — a noun with its gender and the sex of its referents where it has one
• Hausa.Noun.EndsInAa — the noun ends in -ā
• Hausa.allNouns — the nouns

References

• [New00]

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Hausa.Noun : Type

A Hausa noun, with the gender its agreement shows and the gender of its referents where it has one.

Equations

• Hausa.Noun = GenderedNoun Gender

@[reducible, inline]

abbrev Hausa.Noun.EndsInAa (n : Noun) : Prop

The noun ends in -ā, whatever its final tone: the long vowel is one of the last two characters, the second being a tone mark.

Equations

• n.EndsInAa = ('ā' ∈ List.take 2 n.form.toList.reverse)

def Hausa.yarinya : Noun

yārinyā̀ 'girl'.

Equations

• Hausa.yarinya = { form := "yārinyā̀", gloss := "girl", gender := Gender.feminine, naturalGender := some Gender.feminine }

def Hausa.mace : Noun

màcè 'woman', a basic feminine word not in -ā, perhaps once a derived form meaning 'female'.

Equations

• Hausa.mace = { form := "màcè", gloss := "woman", gender := Gender.feminine, naturalGender := some Gender.feminine }

def Hausa.kaza : Noun

kā̀zā 'hen', opposite zàkarā̀ 'cock'.

Equations

• Hausa.kaza = { form := "kā̀zā", gloss := "hen", gender := Gender.feminine, naturalGender := some Gender.feminine }

def Hausa.riga : Noun

rìgā 'gown'.

Equations

• Hausa.riga = { form := "rìgā", gloss := "gown", gender := Gender.feminine }

def Hausa.yaro : Noun

yārò 'boy'.

Equations

• Hausa.yaro = { form := "yārò", gloss := "boy", gender := Gender.masculine, naturalGender := some Gender.masculine }

def Hausa.mutum : Noun

mùtûm 'man'.

Equations

• Hausa.mutum = { form := "mùtûm", gloss := "man", gender := Gender.masculine, naturalGender := some Gender.masculine }

def Hausa.turmi : Noun

turmī 'mortar'.

Equations

• Hausa.turmi = { form := "turmī", gloss := "mortar", gender := Gender.masculine }

def Hausa.gida : Noun

gidā 'house', a masculine in -ā that was once a plural.

Equations

• Hausa.gida = { form := "gidā", gloss := "house", gender := Gender.masculine }

def Hausa.wuka : Noun

wuƙā 'knife'.

Equations

• Hausa.wuka = { form := "wuƙā", gloss := "knife", gender := Gender.feminine }

def Hausa.rana : Noun

rānā 'sun'.

Equations

• Hausa.rana = { form := "rānā", gloss := "sun", gender := Gender.feminine }

def Hausa.kada : Noun

kadā̀ 'crocodile', a native masculine in -ā.

Equations

• Hausa.kada = { form := "kadā̀", gloss := "crocodile", gender := Gender.masculine }

def Hausa.uba : Noun

ùbā 'father', a native masculine in -ā.

Equations

• Hausa.uba = { form := "ùbā", gloss := "father", gender := Gender.masculine, naturalGender := some Gender.masculine }

def Hausa.allNouns : List Noun

The nouns.

Equations

• Hausa.allNouns = [Hausa.yarinya, Hausa.mace, Hausa.kaza, Hausa.riga, Hausa.yaro, Hausa.mutum, Hausa.turmi, Hausa.gida, Hausa.wuka, Hausa.rana, Hausa.kada, Hausa.uba]