wane / wace / waɗanne

Asking Which

Level 1

Noun selection uses interrogative + noun: wane, wace, waɗanne.

How It Works

Place the agreeing interrogative before the noun. Masculine littafi takes wane, feminine hula takes wace, and plural jakunkuna takes waɗanne. Plural selection does not distinguish masculine and feminine groups.

The clause still requires appropriate subject-TAM marking. Future questions retain za forms. Fronted questions about completed or ongoing actions use the relevant relative TAM.

Compare Wace hula za ki saya? “Which cap will you buy?” with Wace ce malamar? “Who is the female teacher?” The first selects an item; the second asks identity.

Freestanding selection has masculine wanne and feminine wacce, with plural waɗanne. Personal identity questions have their own patterns, including plural su wane ne. Do not mechanically substitute the plural noun-selecting form into that identity frame. The doubled consonants in freestanding singular forms belong to ordinary spelling.

Examples (3)

  1. Wane littafi za ka karanta?

    Which book will you read?

    Wane agrees with masculine littafi; the listener is male.

  2. Wace hula za ki saya?

    Which cap will you buy?

    Wace agrees with feminine hula; the listener is female.

  3. Waɗanne jakunkuna za mu kawo?

    Which bags will we bring?

    Waɗanne selects plural bags.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

wane / wace / waɗanneLevel 1Asking Which

Learn This First

Recognize identifying agreement and future participant marking before selecting an intended referent with the agreeing interrogative. In Wace ce malamar, malamar means the established female teacher; final -r marks previous reference here, whose full suffix construction is developed later.

Words in This Pattern

wànè