Indonesian frequently places two predicates together while expressing the subject only once. In Saya ingin pergi, saya is understood as the person who wants and the person who goes. This dependency is called control: one participant selected by the higher predicate determines the unspoken subject of the following action. Similar-looking aspectual sequences with mulai and some uses of berhenti share a subject without necessarily assigning it a separate higher-clause participant role.
Unlike English, Indonesian does not mark the second verb as an infinitive. Bare pergi can serve as the controlled predicate with no equivalent of to. The absence of morphology makes controller identity especially important when several people appear in the sentence. Genuine complement and purpose uses of untuk are treated in untuk complements.
Subject control: one subject for two predicates
With desire, intention, attempt, beginning, and stopping predicates, the subject normally controls the following action.
Saya ingin pergi sebelum jalan menuju bandara macet.
I want to leave before the road to the airport gets congested.
Dina mau belajar memasak selama liburan semester.
Dina wants/intends to learn to cook during the semester break. (informal/neutral spoken)
Raka mencoba membuka jendela yang macet itu.
Raka tries to open that jammed window.
Para teknisi mulai memeriksa kabel di ruang belakang.
The technicians begin checking the cables in the back room.
Ayah berhenti merokok setelah menjalani pemeriksaan kesehatan.
Dad stopped smoking after undergoing a health examination.
In each case, the matrix subject supplies the understood actor of the next predicate:
- saya wants and saya leaves;
- Dina wants and Dina learns;
- Raka tries and Raka opens;
- the technicians begin and the technicians check;
- Father stops and Father had been smoking.
Ingin and mau
Ingin “want/wish” is neutral across careful speech and writing. Mau is extremely common in conversation and can express desire, willingness, or near-future intention.
Kami ingin membahas hasil survei pada rapat berikutnya.
We want to discuss the survey results at the next meeting.
Saya mau beli makan siang dulu.
I want to buy lunch first. (informal)
Bu Ratna ingin bertemu kepala sekolah setelah upacara.
Ms. Ratna wants to meet the principal after the ceremony.
Anak-anak mau bermain di luar setelah hujan berhenti.
The children want to play outside after the rain stops. (informal/neutral spoken)
An overt new subject changes the controller:
Saya ingin dia pergi sebelum tamu lain datang.
I want him/her to leave before the other guests arrive.
Saya ingin agar dia pergi sebelum tamu lain datang.
I want him/her to leave before the other guests arrive. (explicit/careful)
The first uses a directly juxtaposed complement common in contemporary speech. The second uses agar to mark the desired situation explicitly. Neither means that saya will leave.
Do not insert untuk automatically because English uses infinitival to. Some predicates and purpose constructions license untuk, but controlled ingin pergi needs none.
Mencoba: the attempter controls the action
With mencoba “try/attempt,” the subject is normally the participant who attempts the following event.
Nisa mencoba menghubungi pemilik apartemen sejak pagi.
Nisa has been trying to contact the apartment owner since morning.
Kami mencoba memperbaiki mesin itu tanpa mengganti suku cadang.
We tried to repair the machine without replacing any parts.
Petugas mencoba membuka pintu dengan kunci cadangan.
The officer tried to open the door with the spare key.
If the attempter changes, express it:
Saya meminta Rudi mencoba membuka pintu dengan kunci cadangan.
I asked Rudi to try to open the door with the spare key.
Here Rudi, not saya, controls both mencoba and membuka. The selecting predicate meminta introduces Rudi as the requested actor.
Sequences can become genuinely ambiguous when a helping predicate allows joint action or another participant to perform the lower event.
Rani mencoba membantu Siska membawa koper besar itu.
Rani tried to help Siska carry that large suitcase. (Siska certainly participates; Rani may also help carry it)
The subject of mencoba is Rani. The understood actor set of membawa can include Siska alone as the principal carrier or Rani and Siska jointly, depending on context. Control is lexically constrained, but world knowledge can leave the lowest event's participant set underspecified.
Rani mencoba membantu Siska agar Siska bisa membawa koper itu sendiri.
Rani tried to help Siska so that Siska could carry the suitcase herself.
Rani mencoba membantu Siska membawa koper itu bersama-sama.
Rani tried to help Siska carry the suitcase together.
The added material resolves the two readings.
Mulai and berhenti: aspectual subject sharing
Mulai “begin” and berhenti “stop” share their surface subject with the following event. Unlike clear desire or command control, aspectual mulai need not select an intentional controller of its own: the following event supplies the participant or phenomenon that begins. This is why people, machines, and weather expressions can all occur in the pattern.
Tim lapangan mulai memasang tenda sebelum matahari terbit.
The field team began putting up tents before sunrise.
Hujan mulai turun ketika kami sampai di terminal.
It began to rain when we reached the terminal.
Mesin lama itu berhenti bekerja setelah listrik padam.
That old machine stopped working after the power went out.
Dina berhenti berbicara saat direktur memasuki ruangan.
Dina stopped speaking when the director entered the room.
English sometimes inserts dummy it in “it began to rain.” Indonesian simply uses hujan mulai turun or mulai hujan; it does not add an expletive pronoun.
Menjelang sore mulai hujan di kawasan pegunungan.
Toward evening it began to rain in the mountain area.
The weather expression itself supplies the event; no independent controller is required in this impersonal variant.
Object control with menyuruh
Menyuruh “tell/order someone to” selects an object who becomes the understood actor of the following predicate.
Saya menyuruh dia pergi sebelum toko tutup.
I told him/her to leave before the shop closed.
Manajer menyuruh para teknisi memeriksa semua sambungan kabel.
The manager told the technicians to check all the cable connections.
Ibu menyuruh adik membeli minyak goreng di warung.
Mother told my younger sibling to buy cooking oil at the food stall.
The matrix subject gives the order; the object carries it out. Thus dia, para teknisi, and adik control the lower actions.
The passive preserves that relation while promoting the commanded participant:
Dia disuruh pergi sebelum toko tutup.
He/She was told to leave before the shop closed.
Para teknisi disuruh memeriksa sambungan kabel sekali lagi.
The technicians were told to check the cable connections once again.
With no expressed object, menyuruh pergi may be understandable only if context supplies who was ordered. In new or contrastive contexts, deletion creates a real gap in meaning.
Object control with membiarkan
Membiarkan “let/allow/leave” also makes its object the understood subject of a following event or state.
Saya membiarkan anak-anak bermain di halaman sampai sore.
I let the children play in the yard until late afternoon.
Petugas membiarkan pintu darurat tetap terbuka selama latihan.
The officer left the emergency door open during the drill.
Jangan biarkan makanan itu menjadi dingin di meja.
Do not let that food get cold on the table.
In the first, the children play. In the second, the door remains open. In the third, the food becomes cold. The object, not the higher actor, controls or hosts the lower predicate.
Anak-anak dibiarkan bermain di halaman selama tamu berdiskusi.
The children were allowed to play in the yard while the guests talked.
Passive dibiarkan again promotes the lower-event participant.
Pronouns appear only when the controller changes or contrasts
English requires subjects in many embedded finite clauses, while Indonesian controlled complements normally leave the shared subject unexpressed.
Saya ingin pulang setelah laporan ini selesai.
I want to go home after this report is finished.
Saya ingin Rudi pulang sebelum malam.
I want Rudi to go home before nightfall.
Maya mulai belajar bahasa isyarat tahun lalu.
Maya began learning sign language last year.
Maya menyuruh adiknya mulai belajar bahasa isyarat.
Maya told her younger sibling to start learning sign language.
In the first and third examples, the matrix subject controls the following action. In the second and fourth, a different participant is overt because the controller changes.
Negation and controller scope
Negation can target the higher desire/order or the lower action.
Saya tidak ingin pergi ke acara itu sendirian.
I do not want to go to that event alone.
Saya menyuruh dia tidak membuka pintu sebelum petugas datang.
I told him/her not to open the door before the officer arrived.
Manajer tidak menyuruh kami menunda pengiriman.
The manager did not tell us to delay the shipment.
The first denies wanting. The second keeps the command but negates the controlled opening. The third denies that the ordering event occurred. Linear position reflects scope.
Common Mistakes
Adding the shared pronoun again
❌ Saya ingin saya pergi sebelum makan malam.
Incorrect for ordinary same-subject control—the repeated saya is unnecessary and changes the structure.
✅ Saya ingin pergi sebelum makan malam.
I want to leave before dinner.
Use an overt lower subject only when it differs or is contrastive.
Inserting untuk as an English infinitive marker
❌ Rina mencoba untuk dia membuka pintu yang terkunci itu.
Incorrect same-subject control—the inserted pronoun and untuk disrupt the intended dependency.
✅ Rina mencoba membuka pintu yang terkunci itu.
Rina tried to open that locked door.
Untuk has genuine complement and purpose uses, but it is not a universal equivalent of infinitival English to.
Deleting the changed controller after menyuruh
❌ Manajer menyuruh memeriksa kabel, tanpa konteks siapa yang harus memeriksa.
Incomplete in this context—the commanded participant is not recoverable.
✅ Manajer menyuruh teknisi memeriksa kabel utama.
The manager told the technician to check the main cable.
The object of menyuruh controls the lower action and must be expressed when context does not supply it.
Assigning the lower action to the higher subject
❌ Dalam ‘Saya membiarkan Dodi memilih’, saya adalah orang yang memilih.
Incorrect analysis—Dodi, the object of membiarkan, is the chooser.
✅ Saya membiarkan Dodi memilih jadwalnya sendiri.
I let Dodi choose his own schedule.
Object-control predicates assign the lower subject role to their object.
Moving negation to the wrong predicate
❌ Saya tidak menyuruh dia masuk, jika maksudnya saya menyuruh dia untuk tidak masuk.
Incorrect for the intended scope—this denies giving the order at all.
✅ Saya menyuruh dia tidak masuk sebelum dipanggil.
I told him/her not to enter before being called.
Place tidak before the lower predicate when the command exists but its content is negative.
Key Takeaways
- Indonesian control does not use infinitive morphology: Saya ingin pergi directly links two predicates.
- Ingin, mau, and mencoba normally show subject control; aspectual mulai and berhenti share the event subject with the following predicate.
- Menyuruh and membiarkan make their object the understood subject of the lower predicate.
- Omit a lower pronoun when control identifies it; express a pronoun or noun when the controller changes.
- Ambiguity can remain in multi-predicate sequences, especially with helping and joint action; add explicit material when participant sets differ.
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