At an advanced level, choosing -kan or -i is not merely choosing a suffix: it selects which participant becomes the verb's primary object and therefore which participant can anchor passive and object-voice syntax. With transfer verbs, mengirimkan surat kepada Rina centers the transferred theme, whereas mengirimi Rina surat centers the recipient. With location-related verbs, the contrast may select the moving theme, the container, or an affected surface—and may also involve a lexical change that cannot be predicted from a diagram alone.
This page treats extraction, agentless uses, lexical restrictions, frequency, and register. The basic contrast introduces the system; argument labels, ordinary choice, and particle placement belong to the other pages in this series.
Two suffixes, two object maps
The most reliable advanced diagnostic is not the English translation but the noun immediately selected by the derived stem.
| Frame | Primary object | Other participant |
|---|---|---|
| mengirimkan surat kepada Rina | surat, transferred theme | kepada Rina, recipient phrase |
| mengirimi Rina surat | Rina, recipient | surat, secondary theme |
| memasukkan barang ke kotak | barang, moving theme | ke kotak, goal phrase |
| memenuhi kotak dengan barang | kotak, affected container | dengan barang, contents phrase |
Saya mengirimkan surat resmi kepada Rina kemarin sore.
I sent the official letter to Rina yesterday afternoon.
Saya mengirimi Rina surat singkat setiap awal bulan.
I send Rina a short letter at the beginning of every month.
Petugas memasukkan barang bukti ke kotak transparan.
The officer put the evidence into a transparent box.
Berkas lama memenuhi kotak itu hingga tutupnya sulit dipasang.
Old files filled the box so completely that its lid was hard to put on.
Memasukkan and memenuhi do not form a neat suffix pair from one base; they expose the same structural issue from different lexical families. Memasukkan selects what moves inward. Memenuhi selects the space or requirement that becomes full. The morphology guides object mapping, but the root still determines the event.
Relative clauses reveal the voice ecology
Standard Indonesian relative clauses strongly favor a gap corresponding to the subject of the relative clause. To relativize an actor, keep actor voice; to relativize a patient or applied object, choose a voice form that makes it the subject. In first- and second-person object voice, the actor stands immediately before the bare derived stem.
Kurir yang mengirimkan surat itu sudah kembali ke kantor.
The courier who sent the letter has already returned to the office.
Surat yang saya kirimkan kepada Rina belum sampai.
The letter that I sent to Rina has not arrived yet.
Rina yang dikirimi surat oleh panitia belum memberikan jawaban.
Rina, who was sent a letter by the committee, has not replied yet.
Kotak yang dipenuhi berkas lama itu mulai robek.
The box that was filled with old files is beginning to tear.
In careful Standard Indonesian, surat yang saya kirimkan is the object-voice strategy: surat is the head being described, saya is the actor, and kirimkan has no meN- prefix. The actor-voice sequence surat yang saya mengirimkan attempts to extract the object while leaving actor voice in place and is rejected in the standard pattern.
❌ Surat yang saya mengirimkan kepada Rina belum sampai.
Incorrect in careful Standard Indonesian—the extracted theme is not the subject of the actor-voice relative clause.
✅ Surat yang saya kirimkan kepada Rina belum sampai pagi ini.
The letter that I sent to Rina had not arrived by this morning.
The same logic applies to -i, but the promoted participant is different.
❌ Rina yang panitia mengirimi surat itu belum menjawab.
Incorrect in careful Standard Indonesian—the extracted recipient cannot remain the object of actor voice.
✅ Rina yang dikirimi surat itu oleh panitia belum menjawab.
Rina, who was sent that letter by the committee, has not replied.
Passive alignment and agentless clauses
Both applied objects can head a di- passive, and the actor may be expressed with oleh or omitted when unknown, predictable, or irrelevant.
Surat itu sudah dikirimkan oleh sekretaris kepada Rina.
The letter has been sent to Rina by the secretary.
Rina sudah dikirimi surat oleh sekretaris.
Rina has been sent a letter by the secretary.
Dokumen pendukung akan dikirimkan melalui pos tercatat.
The supporting documents will be sent by registered mail. (formal)
Semua pemohon telah dikirimi pemberitahuan tertulis.
All applicants have been sent written notification. (formal)
The last two clauses are fully standard agentless passives. Their difference is not “more passive” versus “less passive”: dokumen pendukung is the theme selected by -kan, while semua pemohon is the recipient selected by -i. Indonesian grammar permits both perspectives because the lexicon supplies both stems.
English-speaking learners sometimes distrust Pemohon dikirimi pemberitahuan because they expect only the transferred item to be a passive subject. That judgment imports English syntax into Indonesian. The Indonesian construction is standard; analyze it inside Indonesian's symmetrical voice ecology.
Secondary participants cannot freely trade places
Once a stem selects its primary object, the remaining participant does not automatically acquire the same passive and extraction privileges.
Editor menuliskan nomor halaman pada lembar koreksi.
The editor writes the page number on the correction sheet.
Editor menulisi lembar koreksi itu dengan catatan singkat.
The editor writes short notes over the correction sheet.
Nomor halaman itu dituliskan pada lembar koreksi.
The page number is written on the correction sheet.
Lembar koreksi itu ditulisi catatan oleh editor.
The correction sheet is written on with notes by the editor.
The -kan family profiles the written content; the -i family profiles the affected surface and often suggests distributed writing. Yet iteration is not contributed by -i in every family, and -kan is not invariably “one-time.” Number, aspect, and the lexical semantics of the root all contribute.
Saya hanya menandai satu jawaban yang meragukan.
I marked only one answer that seemed doubtful.
Petugas berkali-kali mengirimkan tautan yang sama kepada saya.
The officer repeatedly sent the same link to me.
Lexical gaps and divergent pairs
Not every base licenses both suffixes. Even where both surface forms exist, their meanings can diverge beyond a clean theme–location opposition.
Lampu darurat menerangi tangga belakang.
The emergency light illuminates the back staircase.
Petugas menerangkan prosedur pengaduan kepada warga.
The officer explains the complaint procedure to residents. (formal)
Ia mengatakan bahwa jadwalnya sudah berubah.
She said that her schedule had changed.
Dia mengatai tetangganya dengan kata-kata kasar.
He called his neighbor insulting names.
Menerangi is transparently light-on-target, while menerangkan is usually lexical “explain” in this context. Mengatakan introduces reported content; mengatai is not its recipient-oriented counterpart but a lexical verb meaning to call someone names. High-frequency melakukan, menggunakan, meninggalkan, mengetahui, and menghadapi likewise belong to established lexical families. An advanced speaker respects those gaps instead of manufacturing a paired form whenever a discourse contrast seems useful.
Corpus-realistic frequency
Real texts do not distribute -kan and -i as equal members of thousands of tidy pairs. -Kan occurs in many extremely frequent lexical verbs and remains productive in causative, resultative, and benefactive formations. -I is also common, but much of its token frequency comes from established verbs such as memiliki, mengetahui, memenuhi, menghadapi, and mengikuti. The transparent alternation is therefore robust in selected families—especially transfer, application, and location—but it is not a universal paradigm.
Kementerian akan menyampaikan hasil evaluasi pekan depan.
The ministry will announce the evaluation results next week. (formal)
Setiap peserta wajib mengikuti seluruh rangkaian kegiatan.
Every participant must attend the entire program. (formal)
Frequency also interacts with register. Formal Standard Indonesian preserves meN-...-kan, meN-...-i, and their di- counterparts. Casual speech often uses a bare stem or -in, especially in Jakarta-influenced usage. -In can obscure the standard suffix contrast, so word order and context carry more work.
Annotated formal paragraph
Setelah laporan disahkan, sekretariat mengirimkan salinannya kepada seluruh anggota dan mengirimi setiap ketua bidang lembar tindak lanjut.
After the report is approved, the secretariat sends a copy to all members and sends each division head a follow-up sheet. (formal)
Here mengirimkan salinannya chooses the document as the primary object; -nya attaches to salinan as a possessive/anaphoric clitic. Kepada seluruh anggota remains a recipient phrase. The coordinated mengirimi setiap ketua bidang lembar tindak lanjut instead selects each division head as recipient-object. Setelah places the passive approval event before the sending; no suffix itself expresses tense.
Salinan yang telah disahkan akan dikirimkan besok, sedangkan para ketua bidang sudah dikirimi petunjuk pelaksanaan.
The approved copies will be sent tomorrow, while the division heads have already been sent implementation instructions. (formal)
This second sentence makes both selected objects subjects of agentless di- passives. Telah and akan remain separate from their verbs, and passive di- remains attached: disahkan, dikirimkan, dikirimi.
Colloquial exchange
Berkasnya sudah kamu kirim ke Rina belum?
Have you sent the file to Rina yet? (informal)
Sudah. Aku juga kirimin dia fotonya lewat chat.
Yes. I also sent her the photo through chat. (informal, Jakarta-influenced)
The first line uses ordinary object voice with a bare kirim after second-person actor kamu. The second uses colloquial kirimin, which does not preserve the formal -kan/-i opposition transparently; dia is understood as recipient from order and context. In a report, revise it to Saya juga mengiriminya foto tersebut melalui pesan daring or Saya juga mengirimkan foto tersebut kepadanya.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting the recipient after theme-oriented -kan without a preposition
❌ Saya mengirimkan Rina surat keputusan itu.
Incorrect in the standard theme-oriented frame—Rina needs kepada, or the stem must select Rina with -i.
✅ Saya mengirimkan surat keputusan itu kepada Rina.
I sent the decision letter to Rina.
2. Putting the theme first after recipient-oriented -i
❌ Saya mengirimi surat keputusan itu kepada Rina.
Incorrect for the intended recipient-object frame—the first object of mengirimi should be the recipient.
✅ Saya mengirimi Rina surat keputusan itu.
I sent Rina the decision letter.
3. Treating the container as the object of memasukkan
❌ Petugas memasukkan kotak itu dengan barang bukti.
Incorrect for ‘put the evidence into the box’—memasukkan selects the moving theme.
✅ Petugas memasukkan barang bukti ke dalam kotak itu.
The officer put the evidence into that box.
4. Keeping actor voice inside a standard object relative
❌ Formulir yang saya mengisi kemarin hilang.
Incorrect in careful Standard Indonesian—the relativized object requires object voice.
✅ Formulir yang saya isi kemarin hilang.
The form that I filled out yesterday is missing.
5. Rejecting a standard recipient passive as an English calque
❌ Kalimat Pemohon dikirimi surel dianggap salah karena bahasa Inggris memakai objek lain.
Incorrect analysis—English object labels do not determine Indonesian voice syntax.
✅ Semua pemohon dikirimi surel konfirmasi secara otomatis.
All applicants are sent a confirmation email automatically. (formal)
Key Takeaways
- -Kan and -i select different primary objects, and that selection persists in passive, object voice, and relative clauses.
- Standard object relatives use the voice form that makes the extracted participant the pivot: surat yang saya kirimkan, not surat yang saya mengirimkan.
- Agentless dikirimkan and dikirimi clauses are both standard; each preserves its stem's role mapping.
- Lexical gaps and semantic divergence prevent a universal two-form paradigm.
- Formal writing preserves the suffix contrast more consistently than colloquial -in, but frequency is concentrated in established lexical families.
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Start learning Indonesian →Related Topics
- -kan versus -i: Overview and FormationB2 — Recognize how -kan and -i select different affected participants in transfer, caused-motion, container, and surface-oriented lexical families.
- -kan versus -i: Subjects, Objects, and Argument OrderB2 — Track theme, recipient, moving object, and affected container across actor voice, passive, pronoun-agent object voice, pronouns, and omission.
- -kan versus -i: Choosing This ConstructionB2 — Choose between theme-oriented -kan and target-oriented -i, then select voice according to topicality, definiteness, animacy, and genre.
- -kan versus -i: Aspect, Modality, and NegationC1 — Place temporal, modal, and negative particles before unchanged -kan and -i predicates while preserving object selection and lexical aspect.
- Object Voice with a Bare Verb: Advanced Constraints and RegisterC1 — Use advanced Indonesian object voice accurately in relative clauses, extraction, clitic actors, formal prose, and colloquial discourse.
- -kan versus -iB1 — Choose -kan when the caused or transferred theme is structurally affected and -i when a recipient, location, container, or surface becomes the affected object.