Technical remarks on Imperatives with Variable Vowel Verbs

Variable Vowel Verbs show some speaker and dialectal variation in the Imperative. The description in the online grammar presents a common pattern in Kano Hausa, but even within Kano, speakers vary. The main variations are as follows:

• No object following the verb: Some speakers have a final -i on Imperatives of Variable Vowel Verbs with no following object, others have final -a, the "no-object" form of other tenses.*

• Pronoun object following the verb: Some speakers use an Imperative with a Low-High pattern and final long -e before pronoun objects, just as Variable Vowel Verbs in other tenses. Others use a Low-Low pattern and short -e (with High tone on the pronoun, which is, as expected, opposite in tone to the preceding syllable). Yet others use a Low-Low pattern with final -aC where "C" is a doubling of the next consonant.

*The final -i of Variable Vowel Verbs with no following object in the Imperative is a remnant from a time when all Imperatives changed their vowel in the Imperative. The languages most closely related to Hausa in the Chadic family, such as Bole, Karekare, Bade, or Ngizim, spoken to the east of Hausa still form their imperatives this way. The imperative form of bari 'leave' also bears this remnant Chadic Imperative -i. We can tell this because the base form of the verb ends in long -i, but the imperative ends in short -i. Moreover, some speakers retain the -i of the imperative even before objects whereas the -i of the base form drops before objects.