Advanced ke-...-an syntax is governed by lexical frames, not by a single passive transformation. Saya kedinginan has one affected experiencer, Dia kehilangan dompet adds a lost entity, and Kami kedatangan tamu presents the arriving guests as the source of an experience affecting us. Those different frames determine what can be relativized, questioned, omitted, or reformulated.
This page concentrates on extraction, formal–colloquial alternation, lexical exceptions, agentless clauses, and realistic distribution. Basic formation, argument order, construction choice, and preverbal particles belong to the other pages in the experiencer-construction series.
Relativizing the experiencer is straightforward
The affected experiencer is the grammatical subject in the central verbal patterns. It therefore relativizes directly with yang.
Pendaki yang kedinginan itu segera diberi selimut.
The hiker who was freezing was immediately given a blanket.
Penumpang yang kehilangan dompet diminta melapor ke petugas.
The passenger who lost a wallet was asked to report to an officer.
Keluarga yang kedatangan tamu itu menyiapkan kamar tambahan.
The family that had guests arrive prepared an additional room.
Warga yang kehujanan berteduh di aula kelurahan.
Residents who got caught in the rain took shelter in the municipal hall.
In each relative clause, the head noun corresponds to the participant affected by cold, loss, an arrival, or rain. No actor-voice meN- prefix is required, because these predicates do not present that participant as a controlling actor.
Postverbal participants do not all behave alike
The noun after kehilangan is object-like: it names what is lost and can be questioned naturally in its ordinary postverbal position.
Dia kehilangan apa dalam perjalanan itu?
What did he lose on that journey?
Perusahaan itu kehilangan dokumen apa saja akibat serangan siber?
Which documents did that company lose because of the cyberattack?
Directly extracting that participant into a relative is much less straightforward because kehilangan lacks a regular meN-/di- voice pair. Careful Indonesian often makes the missing item the subject of hilang instead:
Dokumen yang hilang dari arsip perusahaan belum ditemukan.
The documents missing from the company's archive have not been found.
Kedatangan tamu has a different structure. The guest is the arriving participant whose arrival affects the subject; it is not a freely promotable direct object. To relativize or question the guest, return to datang.
Tamu yang datang ke rumah kami ternyata teman lama Ayah.
The guest who came to our house turned out to be an old friend of Dad's.
Siapa yang datang ketika kalian sedang makan malam?
Who arrived while you were having dinner?
Kalian kedatangan siapa tadi malam?
Who showed up at your place last night? (informal)
The final question occurs naturally in conversation, but its fronting behavior does not prove that siapa is an ordinary patient object. A careful relative such as tamu yang kami kedatangan is strongly disfavored; tamu yang datang ke rumah kami is the standard solution.
Pure excessive-state kedinginan has no postverbal object to extract.
Siapa yang kedinginan setelah menunggu di luar?
Who was freezing after waiting outside?
Apa yang membuat mereka kedinginan?
What made them feel so cold?
The cause belongs in a causal phrase or a separate causative clause, not in an invented object slot after kedinginan.
Extraction reveals lexical exceptions
Some frequent formations have developed frames that cannot be predicted from the transparent circumfix alone. Ketahuan can take a clause-like complement, kelihatan can predicate an appearance, and kebagian can introduce what someone receives.
Mereka ketahuan masuk melalui pintu belakang.
They were caught entering through the back door.
Dia kelihatan lelah setelah penerbangan malam.
She looks tired after the overnight flight. (informal)
Saya kebagian kursi dekat jendela.
I got a seat near the window. (informal)
Kamu akhirnya kebagian apa?
What did you end up getting? (informal)
The last sentence is conversational and regionally variable; neutral Standard Indonesian prefers:
Kamu akhirnya mendapat apa?
What did you end up getting?
Kelihatan and kebagian are widespread in speech but noticeably conversational in careful edited prose, where terlihat and mendapat bagian are common alternatives. Ketahuan is standard across registers, though a formal report may choose diketahui or tepergok depending on whether the meaning is “become known” or “be caught in the act.” These are lexical choices, not productive replacements available for every root.
No hidden actor is required
Affected-experiencer clauses are semantically complete without an actor. Cold weather is a stimulus, a lost wallet is an affected possession, and an arriving guest is the source of an arrival event. None is automatically an agent acting on the experiencer.
Kami kedinginan karena jendela bus tidak bisa ditutup.
We were freezing because the bus window could not be closed.
Rina kehilangan kartu akses saat berpindah kereta.
Rina lost her access card while changing trains.
Kami kedatangan dua tamu dari Surabaya menjelang malam.
We had two guests arrive from Surabaya toward evening.
Ia kecurian sepeda ketika sedang berbelanja.
He had his bicycle stolen while he was shopping.
If the thief matters, reorganize the report around mencuri or dicuri rather than adding an oleh phrase to kecurian.
Pencuri itu mengambil sepeda Rudi dari tempat parkir.
The thief took Rudi's bicycle from the parking area.
Sepeda Rudi dicuri oleh seseorang saat ia berbelanja.
Rudi's bicycle was stolen by someone while he was shopping.
Rudi kecurian sepeda oleh seseorang is not the neutral way to identify the thief. The ke-...-an clause foregrounds Rudi's adverse experience; the di- passive foregrounds what happened to the bicycle and can license an agent.
There is no automatic active–passive pair
English lose looks active because its experiencer precedes the verb. That does not make Indonesian kehilangan an ordinary meN- actor-voice verb, and there is no regular passive dikehilangkan corresponding to it.
Saya kehilangan berkas asli itu di bandara.
I lost the original file at the airport.
Berkas asli itu hilang di bandara.
The original file went missing at the airport.
Saya tidak sengaja menghilangkan berkas asli itu.
I accidentally caused the original file to go missing.
These clauses differ in valency and responsibility. Kehilangan centers the person suffering a loss, hilang centers the missing item, and menghilangkan introduces a causer. Calling the first construction “nonstandard active” because it lacks meN- imports an English expectation that Indonesian does not share.
The same caution applies to kedatangan. Compare the experiential predicate with a noun:
Kami kedatangan tamu ketika listrik padam.
We had guests arrive when the power went out.
Kedatangan tamu itu membuat kami menunda rapat keluarga.
The arrival of those guests made us postpone the family meeting.
The first kedatangan is predicative and has an affected subject; the second heads a noun phrase. The spelling is identical, so surrounding syntax must identify the category.
Formal and colloquial alternation
Kehilangan is common in conversation, news, legal prose, and academic discussion. Kedinginan is ordinary in conversation and narrative and also occurs in reports about exposure. Predicative kedatangan tamu is common in speech and narrative; formal prose often prefers menerima kedatangan tamu or a direct tamu datang clause when no affected-experience nuance is needed.
Pemohon kehilangan hak untuk mengajukan keberatan setelah batas waktu berakhir.
The applicant loses the right to lodge an objection after the deadline expires. (formal)
Dua pendaki mengalami kedinginan setelah terjebak hujan deras.
Two hikers suffered from cold exposure after being trapped in heavy rain. (formal)
Kami menerima kedatangan delegasi pada pukul sembilan.
We received the delegation at nine. (formal)
Aku dingin banget; jaketku tipis.
I'm really cold; my jacket is thin. (informal)
Dompetnya hilang pas naik bus.
His wallet disappeared while he was on the bus. (informal)
Pas in the last example is (informal). Register alternatives change packaging, not grammaticality: full ke-...-an forms are standard, while speakers may choose shorter lexical competitors in casual interaction.
Corpus frequency must be stated lexically. Kehilangan is far more broadly distributed than a newly coined excessive derivative; kedatangan is frequent as both noun and predicate, and kedinginan clusters in experiential contexts. Counting every word beginning ke- and ending -an would mix nouns, predicates, and unrelated lexical histories.
Annotated formal paragraph
Akibat gangguan transportasi, sejumlah penumpang kehilangan dokumen penting dan beberapa anak mengalami kedinginan setelah menunggu di luar terminal. Pada saat yang sama, keluarga penampung kedatangan tamu lebih awal daripada jadwal yang telah disepakati.
Because of the transport disruption, several passengers lost important documents, and some children suffered from cold exposure after waiting outside the terminal. At the same time, the host families had guests arrive earlier than the agreed schedule. (formal)
- Kehilangan dokumen penting retains the affected experiencer as subject and the lost entity as its lexical complement.
- Formal mengalami kedinginan nominally packages the cold condition; a direct anak-anak kedinginan clause would be less bureaucratic.
- Keluarga penampung kedatangan tamu keeps the host families as the affected topic, while lebih awal describes the arrival.
- Passive telah disepakati is one word; locative di luar terminal keeps di separate.
Colloquial exchange
A: Kok kamu menggigil? B: Aku kedinginan. Tadi aku kehilangan dompet, lalu sampai rumah malah kedatangan tamu.
A: Why are you shivering? B: I'm freezing. Earlier I lost my wallet, and then when I got home, guests showed up.
Kok and discourse malah are (informal). The exchange uses three direct predicates because the speaker is recounting personal inconvenience; a chain of abstract nouns would sound detached.
Common Mistakes
1. Adding an English-style by-agent to an excessive state
❌ Saya kedinginan oleh hujan semalam.
Incorrect neutral framing—rain is a cause or circumstance, not a passive agent of kedinginan.
✅ Saya kedinginan karena kehujanan semalam.
I was freezing because I got caught in the rain last night.
2. Reversing the experiencer and lost entity
❌ Dompet kehilangan dia di pasar.
Incorrect—the person suffering the loss is the subject of kehilangan.
✅ Dia kehilangan dompet di pasar.
She lost her wallet at the market.
3. Reversing the host and arriving participant
❌ Tamu kedatangan kami ketika makan malam.
Incorrect for the intended meaning—the host group is the affected subject.
✅ Kami kedatangan tamu ketika makan malam.
We had guests arrive while we were having dinner.
4. Building a regular passive of kehilangan
❌ Dompet itu dikehilangkan Rina di stasiun.
Incorrect—kehilangan has no regular di- passive with this meaning.
✅ Dompet Rina hilang di stasiun.
Rina's wallet went missing at the station.
5. Treating the arriving guest as a freely extractable object
❌ Tamu yang kami kedatangan tadi menginap di hotel.
Incorrect in careful Standard Indonesian—kedatangan does not license this ordinary object relative.
✅ Tamu yang datang ke rumah kami tadi menginap di hotel.
The guest who came to our house earlier is staying at a hotel.
Key Takeaways
- Experiencer subjects relativize directly: orang yang kedinginan, orang yang kehilangan dompet, keluarga yang kedatangan tamu.
- Postverbal participants are lexically different: the lost entity after kehilangan is object-like, while the arriving guest after kedatangan is not a freely promotable patient.
- These clauses are complete without an actor; use meN- or di- alternatives when a causer or thief becomes central.
- Identical ke-...-an spelling can hide noun–predicate ambiguity, especially with kedatangan and kehilangan.
- Standard experiential ke-...-an participates in Indonesian's discourse-sensitive voice ecology; its divergence from English active/passive syntax is not evidence of nonstandard usage.
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