Abstract
This article analyses the various types and functions of clitics in Hausa grammar. It has been observed that there are different types of clitics in the world’s languages. However, some students and researchers could not identify them in Hausa. That is why this article focuses on tracing such categories and their examples from the Hausa language, to understand them. The model of Spencer & Lius (2012) was adopted in this research, as it studies the rules of language and differentiates between the grammatical categories of the world’s languages that are related to each other. Similarly, this model was used to categorize types of clitics in certain languages. This research focuses on investigating some types of clitics in the Hausa language, such as proclitics, interclitics, enclitics, and special clitics. The article also gives some examples of enclitics that can be found in some Hausa dialects, particularly in the Kano dialect,as kawas from kawar, mas from masa, and kasai from kashe shi, tasai from tashe shi in the Sokoto dialect,etc.Finally, the paper finds the importance of clitics in word formation and meaning extension in Hausa grammar, such as in pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, possessives, negation, numerals, etc. It also differentiates between gender and number morphologically.
Keywords: Morphology, Clitics, Hausa Language, Grammar
DOI: www.doi.org/10.36349/sojolics.2025.v01i02.001
author/Abdullahi Bashir & Prof. Isah Abdullahi Muhammad
journal/Sokoto JOLICS 1(2) | November 2025 |
