kowane / kowace / duk

Every and All

Level 2

Kowane accompanies masculine singular nouns; kowace accompanies feminine singular nouns. Duk/duka express group totality.

How It Works

Place kowane or kowace before a singular noun. Clause agreement follows that noun: the ongoing examples use masculine yana or feminine tana. Plural distributive kowaɗanne also exists, separately from these singular patterns.

Duk and duka totalize a group and can stand before or after its noun phrase. In Yara duk sun zo, plural sun agrees with the children; duk includes every relevant member.

Compare individual studying with arrival by the complete group. Neither expression by itself identifies who belongs to the group: context supplies that membership. The examples here quantify countable people, using singular agreement for individual distribution and plural agreement for plural groups.

Examples (4)

  1. Kowane ɗalibi yana karatu.

    Every male student is studying.

    Masculine singular distribution takes yana.

  2. Kowace ɗaliba tana karatu.

    Every female student is studying.

    Feminine singular distribution takes tana.

  3. Yara duk sun zo.

    All the children came.

    Duk follows the subject noun.

  4. Duk baƙin sun dawo.

    All the guests returned.

    Duk precedes the established plural group.

How It Connects

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

kowane / kowace / dukLevel 2Every and All

Learn This First

Recognize singular gender, plural group reference and established-reference noun phrases before distinguishing each member from the entire set with kowane/kowace/duk.

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Patterns that build on this one.

Words in This Pattern

kowannedúkà