The positional definition of Hausa noun and verb, which uses person and aspect markers "y, s, and t" as criteria, is criticized as an unreliable framework for identification of nouns and verbs. It is proposed that this is so for nouns because a word may appear as a noun without any of the three markers. Verbs are more central than the person markers, indicating that they can not be identified positionally. A more appropriate approach, it is argued, is to consider the semantic role of a word and then define its meaning. For example, a word may be a noun if it plays the semantic role of an agentive, experiencer, benefactive, instrument, or locative, and it may be regarded as a verb if it indicates action, process, or both. (MSE)