Orthography: Instead of using unicode characters, I’m borrowing the system used by an online Hausa-English dictionary, as it was designed for a database which could only use extended ASCII letters (and didn’t rely on unicode). Here is a list of notations: a,e,i,o,u = short vowel aa, ee, ii, oo, uu = long (double) vowel high tone is unmarked à, è, ì, ò, ù = low tone â, ê, î, ô, û = falling tone ùu = long vowel with low tone r = coronal r r. = retroflex r ‘b = bilabial implosive ‘d = aveolar implosive k’ = velar ejective ‘y = glottalized y BASIC WORD ORDER Hausa has a basic SVO order. The subject (if present) always comes before the verb. The object appears after the verb, but can be fronted if it is the focus of the sentence or if it is topicalized. Any element (NP, adv, PP or verb in verbal noun form) can be moved in front of the sentence in order to make it the focus. Focus is marked by the stabilizer nee/cee/nee (m/f/pl). Also, topicalizing a NP may cause it to be moved to a sentence-initial position. This is different from focus, since it is not as integral to the sentence. If both occur in a sentence, the focus comes after the topic. Indirect objects occur directly after the verb and before other VP arguments (including direct objects). Hausa has non-verbal sentence structures which aren’t covered by the SVO pattern. These sentences use prepositions, a stabilizer, or an existential ‘there is/are’ word to indicate state. Also, I don’t think Hausa contains auxiliaries. Tense, aspect and mood are represented in a pre-verbal complex that the reference grammar refers to as the PAC (person-aspect complex). It is made up of a person pronoun connected to a tense/aspect/mood marker. The author notes that it corresponds to INFL. I’m having trouble deciding what to call the PAC. Does this count as a particle? An inflectional marker? Since the PAC must precede the verb, I added ungrammatical test cases where it is in different positions. Hausa has non-verbal sentence structures which aren’t covered by the SVO pattern. Some of these sentences contain only the PAC. Other sentences don't include the PAC and use prepositions, the stabilizer, or an existential ‘there is/are’ word to indicate a state of being. Do I need to consider these patterns right now? I included a couple test cases of the order 'Subj + Predicate + stabilizer' and Just considering sentences with a recognizable subject, object and verb, I believe that Hausa disallows VSO and VOS word orders. Likewise, SOV and OSV constructions are ungrammatical. I'm assuming that two unmarked NPs next to each other is not a . The OSV sentence would be grammatical if the first NP was followed by the stabilizer nee/cee/nee (m/f/pl), since it would be interpreted as an object which has been made the focus of the sentence. I haven’t found anything which directly marks the subject and the object, so I believe they can switch places (given they are the same gender/person/number). This means OVS constructions can be grammatical, if confusing (like ‘gidaa yaa ginà mùtûm’, ‘the house built the man’). In this example, house and man are both masculine singular, so there isn’t a problem with gender and number agreement. PRONOUNS Pronouns in Hausa vary by person, number and gender (only in singular 2nd and 3rd person). They appear in 8 different forms (though some forms are limited in how they conjugate). These pronoun forms are: independent, strong object, weak object, indirect object, free possessive, bound genitive, reflexive and reciprocal. The free possessive is a standalone word, while bound genitives are usually attached to the end of a word. Pronouns, for the most part, can occur in the same positions as NPs and take the same possessive and determiner suffixes. When a simple pronoun (unmodified by a possessive, adjective, or conjunction) is in the subject position, it is always deleted since the same inflectional information is encoded into the preverbal PAC. Pronouns are allowed to be subjects when the sentence has no verb. This happens in equational sentences like ‘ nii maalàmii nèe’, ‘I am a teacher’ which uses the stabilizer nèe. THE REST OF THE NP The NP in Hausa only requires a noun as its head. Determiners are optional. The definite article ‘the’ consists of a suffix (usually -n, with a low tone placed on the preceding vowel) which is attached to the head noun. The definite article in Hausa roughly corresponds to ‘the’ in English, except it means ‘a noun previously referred to, or a noun that can be identified through context.’ This means that the first time the noun is referred to, it does not have the definite article. Determiners can occur before or after the head of a NP. Demonstratives like that/those/this precede the noun. A noun can have determiners preceding and following it, i.e. ‘wancàn gidâ-n’, that house-the, ‘that very house.’ ARGUMENT OPTIONALITY Hausa is a subject pro-drop language. Since the PAC preceding the verb captures all of the subject’s inflectional and tense information, the subject NP can be omitted. As mentioned before, a simple personal pronoun (with no modifiers) must be dropped if it is the subject. Objects can’t be dropped, as they are not in agreement with the verb. I'm not sure about forming ungrammatical test cases for dropped objects, because a lot of the verbs seem to have identical transitive and intransitive forms. I found an example that listed one verb 'tàimàkee' 'help' as being transitive and the related 'taimàkaa' 'help' as being intransitive, so I tried to use that one in my test case. I'm not so sure about what is happening with other verb forms, as 'taa maidàa' 'she.COMP returned (it)' has the same form as 'taa maidàa zoobèe' 'she.COMP returned the ring'. NEGATION Sentences are negated as a whole in Hausa by surrounding the sentence with the construct bàa . . .ba. The first word goes at the start of the sentence and the second at the end of it. This negates the entire truth value of the sentence, not just part of it or the predicate. Parts of the sentence can also be negated by surrounding them with bàa . . .ba. In equational sentences ending with a stabilizer (like ‘I am a teacher’,nii maalàmii nèe’), the stabilizer stays at the end of the sentence (ba precedes it). I found it difficult to construct ungrammatical examples for sentential negation, since putting the negative markers in a different place just negates a different part of the sentence. Comments and Questions: Since the pronouns change form for object, subject and genitive positions, does that mean that Hausa has a case system? I know in English the case system doesn’t change the form of nouns, but it does change pronouns in accusative case. If this doesn’t constitute a case system, then the section on case would be irrelevant for Hausa. I’m very confused about how verbs are formed in Hausa. There are 8 verb grades, and I don’t have a clear understanding of what they indicate. The grade tells something about the semantics of the verb, but it also seems to be just a convenient way of grouping together similar verb forms (or ending vowels). I think I need to read the section on verbs again, but do you know any resources that might help?