Advanced -kan is fundamentally about preserving an argument frame when discourse rearranges a clause. The suffix may license a caused theme, an affected entity, or a beneficiary, but relative clauses and questions can privilege only participants that the chosen frame makes structurally available. This page addresses extraction, agent omission, lexical exceptions, register, and realistic distribution; formation, basic arguments, voice choice, and aspect or negation belong to the other four pages in the -kan voice series.
The lexical frame comes before extraction
Four common families illustrate different -kan frames.
Ibu membacakan anak itu sebuah buku tentang laut.
Mother reads the child a book about the sea.
Petugas memasukkan kunci cadangan ke laci terkunci.
The officer puts the spare key into a locked drawer.
Staf membersihkan meja pemeriksaan setelah loket tutup.
The staff clean the inspection desk after the counter closes.
Kami dibukakan pintu samping oleh penjaga.
The guard opened the side door for us.
In membacakan anak itu sebuah buku, the reader is actor, anak itu is the beneficiary-object, and sebuah buku is the theme read. In memasukkan kunci, the key is the caused-moving theme and the drawer remains a destination introduced by ke. Membersihkan meja selects the table as the affected object brought into a clean state. In Kami dibukakan pintu, kami is the beneficiary promoted as passive subject, while pintu remains the opened theme.
The surface suffix is identical, but the base and the construction determine which extra role is licensed. There is no universal “-kan object.”
Relative clauses follow the privileged argument
Indonesian strongly favors relativizing the selected subject. When the head noun is the actor, actor voice remains.
Ibu yang membacakan buku baru kepada anak itu bekerja di perpustakaan.
The mother who reads a new book to the child works at the library.
Petugas yang memasukkan kunci ke laci sudah pulang.
The officer who put the key in the drawer has gone home.
Staf yang membersihkan meja pemeriksaan memakai sarung tangan.
The staff member who cleans the inspection desk wears gloves.
Penjaga yang membukakan pintu samping untuk kami mengenal semua penghuni.
The guard who opens the side door for us knows all the residents.
When the head noun corresponds to the object, Standard Indonesian normally selects di- or pronoun-agent object voice.
Anak yang dibacakan buku baru itu duduk di baris depan.
The child who was read a new book is sitting in the front row.
Kunci yang dimasukkan petugas ke laci ternyata kunci gudang.
The key that the officer put in the drawer turned out to be the warehouse key.
Meja yang dibersihkan staf tadi sudah berdebu lagi.
The desk that the staff cleaned earlier is dusty again.
Pintu yang saya bukakan untuk para peserta menghadap ke taman.
The door I opened for the participants faces the garden.
The suffix remains because relativization changes information structure, not lexical valency. English often hides this distinction: the key the officer put in the drawer contains no visible causative morphology, while Indonesian keeps -kan in dimasukkan.
Extraction limits reveal the selected object
A fronted yang question can ask for the participant selected as subject by the current voice.
Siapa yang membacakan anak itu buku baru?
Who read the child a new book?
Apa yang dimasukkan petugas ke laci?
What did the officer put into the drawer?
Meja mana yang dibersihkan staf tadi pagi?
Which desk did the staff clean this morning?
Siapa yang dibukakan pintu oleh penjaga?
For whom did the guard open the door?
The last question is possible because the benefactive frame permits that person to be the passive subject. The destination of memasukkan, however, remains inside a ke phrase. It cannot simply be treated as the direct object of the same verb.
Laci mana yang menjadi tempat petugas memasukkan kunci?
Which drawer is where the officer put the key?
Petugas memasuki ruangan tempat laci itu berada.
The officer enters the room where the drawer is located.
Use a tempat relative or select a different established lexical frame. Laci yang dimasukkan petugas kunci wrongly assigns the drawer the role of caused-moving theme. That is not an exotic English-versus-Indonesian style preference; it changes who moved.
Two passive alignments in benefactive frames
Benefactive -kan can support a recipient-centered clause or a theme-centered clause, depending on the lexical construction and discourse topic.
Para tamu dibukakan pintu oleh petugas keamanan.
The security officer opened a door for the guests.
Pintu samping dibukakan oleh petugas keamanan untuk para tamu.
The side door was opened for the guests by the security officer.
Anak-anak dibacakan sebuah buku oleh guru mereka.
The children were read a book by their teacher.
Buku itu dibacakan oleh guru mereka kepada anak-anak.
The book was read aloud to the children by their teacher.
In the first and third clauses, the beneficiary is subject and the theme follows the verb. In the second and fourth, the theme is subject and the beneficiary is expressed with untuk or kepada. Speakers do not choose solely by English word order; they choose which participant anchors the Indonesian clause.
Not every -kan family allows both alignments equally naturally. Caused-motion memasukkan strongly selects the moving theme as object, and membersihkan selects the entity cleaned. A dictionary and attested frames are necessary where the alternation is uncertain.
Agentless uses are complete clauses
Passive di-...-kan readily omits the actor when it is unknown, generic, recoverable, or irrelevant.
Kunci cadangan sudah dimasukkan ke laci terkunci.
The spare key has been put into the locked drawer.
Meja pemeriksaan dibersihkan setiap pergantian giliran.
The inspection desk is cleaned at every shift change.
Anak-anak akan dibacakan buku setelah makan siang.
The children will be read a book after lunch.
Begitu tiba, kami langsung dibukakan pintu.
As soon as we arrived, a door was opened for us.
These clauses do not contain defective English-style passives. Indonesian normally leaves agents unexpressed when the continuing topic is the key, desk, children, or arriving group. Adding an actor is a discourse choice, not a grammatical repair.
Lexicalized families constrain analysis
High-frequency -kan forms may no longer invite a transparent causative or benefactive paraphrase.
Panitia melakukan verifikasi sebelum mengumumkan hasil.
The committee carries out verification before announcing the result. (formal)
Kami menggunakan data terbaru untuk menyelesaikan laporan.
We use the latest data to finish the report.
Ia meninggalkan kunci di meja resepsionis.
He/She leaves the key on the reception desk.
Pemilik menyewakan kamar itu kepada mahasiswa baru.
The owner rents the room out to a new student.
Melakukan means “carry out,” menggunakan “use,” meninggalkan “leave,” and menyewakan “rent out.” Their current meanings and objects must be learned as lexical families. The productive schema helps organize them, but mechanically paraphrasing each as “make do,” “make useful,” or “cause to stay” produces false analyses.
Annotated formal paragraph
Dalam kegiatan literasi sore, pustakawan membacakan sebuah buku panduan kepada anak-anak, memasukkan kunci lemari ke amplop khusus, membersihkan meja baca, dan memastikan setiap kelompok dibukakan pintu menuju halaman.
During the afternoon literacy activity, the librarian reads a guidebook to the children, puts the cabinet key into a special envelope, cleans the reading table, and ensures that a door to the yard is opened for each group. (formal)
The paragraph coordinates four distinct frames. Membacakan sebuah buku panduan kepada anak-anak selects the theme as object and places the beneficiary in a kepada phrase. Memasukkan kunci ... ke amplop has a moving theme and an overt goal. Membersihkan meja has one affected object. In setiap kelompok dibukakan pintu, the beneficiary is the embedded passive subject and pintu remains after the verb. Full meN-...-kan and di-...-kan forms are appropriate in an institutional report; locative ke remains separate.
Colloquial exchange
A: Tolong bacain anak-anak buku yang biru, masukin kuncinya ke amplop, terus bersihin meja ini. B: Siap. Nanti aku bukain mereka pintu samping juga.
A: Please read the children the blue book, put the key in the envelope, then clean this table. B: Sure. I'll open the side door for them too. (informal; Jakarta-influenced)
A: Tolong bacakan buku biru kepada anak-anak, masukkan kuncinya ke amplop, lalu bersihkan meja ini. B: Baik. Nanti saya bukakan pintu samping untuk mereka juga.
A: Please read the blue book to the children, put the key in the envelope, then clean this table. B: All right. I'll open the side door for them too. (careful spoken)
Jakarta-influenced -in often neutralizes the standard -kan/-i distinction: bacain, masukin, bersihin, bukain are informal, not alternative spellings for edited Indonesian. Other regions use different colloquial patterns, and many speakers retain full -kan in ordinary conversation.
Corpus-realistic frequency is lexical and genre-sensitive
Formal and edited Indonesian uses -kan families constantly, especially lexical verbs such as menggunakan, melakukan, memberikan, menunjukkan, and menyebabkan. Transparent resultative forms such as membersihkan are common across genres. Benefactive double-object patterns occur naturally, but a theme plus kepada/untuk is often clearer in edited prose.
Data tersebut digunakan untuk menunjukkan perubahan pola konsumsi.
Those data are used to show a change in consumption patterns. (academic)
Petugas memberikan penjelasan kepada setiap pemohon.
The officer provides an explanation to every applicant. (formal)
Aku masukin kuncinya ke tas dulu, ya.
I'll put the key in the bag first, okay? (informal; Jakarta-influenced)
There is no honest universal percentage for “-kan versus -in.” Frequency depends on the individual verb, region, genre, speaker, and whether the text is edited. A corpus count must compare lexical families and discourse environments, not suffix strings in isolation.
Common Mistakes
Keeping actor voice when the beneficiary is relativized
❌ Anak yang ibu membacakan buku itu duduk di depan.
Incorrect in careful Standard Indonesian — the head is the beneficiary-object, not the actor-voice subject.
✅ Anak yang dibacakan buku oleh ibunya itu duduk di depan.
The child who was read a book by his/her mother is sitting in front.
Promoting the destination of memasukkan as though it were the moving object
❌ Laci yang dimasukkan petugas kunci itu sudah terkunci.
Incorrect — the key is what is caused to enter; the drawer remains a goal.
✅ Laci tempat petugas memasukkan kunci itu sudah terkunci.
The drawer where the officer put the key is already locked.
Reversing the actor and affected object of membersihkan
❌ Meja membersihkan petugas setelah loket tutup.
Incorrect for the intended event — this makes meja the cleaner.
✅ Petugas membersihkan meja setelah loket tutup.
The officer cleans the table after the counter closes.
Interrupting the benefactive passive frame
❌ Kami dibukakan oleh petugas pintu samping.
Incorrect neutral order — the remaining theme precedes the delayed oleh-agent.
✅ Kami dibukakan pintu samping oleh petugas.
The officer opened the side door for us.
Treating colloquial -in as standard -kan spelling
❌ Dalam laporan: Petugas masukin kunci dan bersihin meja.
Incorrect written forms for an edited report — use the standard derived stems.
✅ Dalam laporan, petugas memasukkan kunci dan membersihkan meja.
In the report, the officer puts away the key and cleans the table. (formal)
Key Takeaways
- Relative clauses and extraction preserve the lexical -kan frame; they do not freely promote any nearby noun.
- Benefactive verbs may privilege a beneficiary or a theme, but caused-motion and resultative frames are more restricted.
- Agentless di-...-kan clauses are complete and ordinary when discourse tracks the affected participant.
- Productive valency patterns coexist with highly frequent lexicalized families whose meanings require lexical knowledge.
- Standard -kan, colloquial -in, and passive or object voice form part of a symmetrical, discourse-sensitive voice ecology rather than an imitation of English passive syntax.
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Start learning Indonesian →Related Topics
- -kan Valency Patterns: Overview and FormationA2 — Recognize how -kan builds causative, benefactive, caused-motion, and resultative stems across Indonesian voice constructions.
- -kan Valency Patterns: Subjects, Objects, and Argument OrderB2 — Identify actors, caused themes, affected objects, beneficiaries, and secondary themes in -kan clauses across active, passive, and object voice.
- -kan Valency Patterns: Choosing This ConstructionB2 — Choose -kan and its voice according to the participant added by the lexical frame and the actor, beneficiary, or theme that anchors the discourse.
- -kan Valency Patterns: Aspect, Modality, and NegationB2 — Place aspect, future, modal, and negative particles around -kan stems while preserving their valency and voice relationships.
- -kan: Valency, Lexicalization, and RegisterB2 — Use -kan stems with the right objects, voice patterns, competing suffixes, lexical conventions, and formal or conversational forms.
- Valency-Changing MorphologyB2 — See how Indonesian derivation adds, removes, and promotes participants through causative, applicative, reciprocal, middle, and ter- constructions.