kada

Telling Someone Not to Act

Level 3

Kada introduces a negative subjunctive with the appropriate subject form.

How It Works

Place kada before the subjunctive expression. With a noun subject, it precedes the noun, which retains its agreeing subject marker. This construction does not take ordinary ba … ba framing.

Compare Kada yara su shiga ‘The children should not enter’ with Ba su shiga ba ‘They did not enter’. The first directs non-entry; the second reports a non-event. A purpose introducer can embed prevention, such as hiding an item so another person will not see it.

Contracted kar occurs, and its final consonant can assimilate in speech. Assimilated displays must be labelled as pronunciation variants rather than required ordinary spellings. Negative instructions to either one person or a group use negative subjunctive rather than a negated singular imperative.

Examples (3)

  1. Kada mu fita yanzu.

    Let’s not go out now.

    Kada negates a plural exhortation.

  2. Kada Musa ya ɗauki littafin.

    Musa should not take the book.

    Kada precedes the named subject and its marker.

  3. Ta ɓoye jakar don kada in gan ta.

    She hid the bag so that I would not see it.

    The preventive clause uses gan before the pronoun object.

How It Connects

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

kadaLevel 3Telling Someone Not to Act

Learn This First

Recognize the subjunctive subject frame before using kada to direct avoidance rather than report a completed negative event. In Ta ɓoye jakar don kada in gan ta, don introduces the preventive purpose, in marks its first-person subjunctive subject, and final ta is the feminine short direct object referring to the bag; finite gani takes gan before that pronoun.