ke-...-an Experiencer Constructions: Subjects, Objects, and Argument Order | Indonesian Grammar

The noun phrase before an experiential ke-...-an predicate is normally the grammatical subject, but the noun phrase after it does not have one fixed status. Saya kedinginan has no object, Dia kehilangan dompet has an object-like lost theme, and Kami kedatangan tamu presents an arriving participant inside a special affected-goal frame. English labels based on translation alone obscure these differences; voice morphology, relativization, valency, and information structure must be considered together.

This page analyzes participants and order. It builds on the overview and formation guide and leaves discourse choice, particle scope, and advanced lexical ambiguity to the other pages in the series.

Subject diagnostics: affected does not mean object

The preverbal participant controls the clause's continuing perspective and is the natural gap in a yang relative.

Sinta kedinginan, lalu mengenakan jaket yang dipinjamkan temannya.

Sinta was freezing and then put on a jacket lent by her friend.

Arif kehilangan dompet, lalu menelepon pengelola stasiun.

Arif lost his wallet and then called the station management.

Keluarga kami kedatangan tamu, lalu menyiapkan kamar belakang.

Our family had guests arrive and then prepared the back room.

In each continuation, the omitted subject of the second predicate is understood as Sinta, Arif, or keluarga kami. These participants are not intentional actors of cold, loss, or arrival, yet they occupy the subject position.

Relatives show the same alignment:

Pendaki yang kedinginan itu dibawa ke pos kesehatan.

The hiker who was freezing was taken to the medical post.

Penumpang yang kehilangan dompet diminta mengisi formulir ini.

Passengers who lost a wallet are asked to complete this form.

Kantor yang kedatangan auditor itu menunda rapat mingguan.

The office that had auditors arrive postponed its weekly meeting.

The head nouns supply the missing experiencer, possessor, or affected goal. English might call a person who “has something happen to them” an indirect object in a paraphrase, but that does not make the Indonesian preverbal phrase an object.

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Subjecthood is a bundle of grammatical behavior, not the semantic role “doer.” An experiencer, possessor, household, or building can be the subject when the clause is organized around what affects it.

Three predicates, three valency patterns

Kedinginan: one central participant

Kedinginan normally selects an experiencer subject and no direct object. Temperature source, location, and cause enter as adjuncts.

Bayi itu kedinginan di kamar sebelah.

The baby is freezing in the next room.

Saya kedinginan karena pakaian saya masih basah.

I am freezing because my clothes are still wet.

Mereka kedinginan akibat angin yang masuk dari celah pintu.

They are freezing because of wind coming through the gap in the door.

Di kamar sebelah is a location, while karena and akibat introduce causes. None is an actor or object of kedinginan.

Kehilangan: an object-like lost theme

Kehilangan licenses a following entity whose loss the subject suffers. This theme is object-like: it can be a full noun phrase or a bound pronoun, and it can be questioned.

Dia kehilangan dompet kulit berwarna cokelat.

He/She lost a brown leather wallet.

Aku kehilangannya ketika berpindah gerbong.

I lost it when changing train cars. (informal pronoun subject; -nya refers to the lost item)

Dia kehilangan apa di dalam kereta?

What did he/she lose on the train?

Directly making that theme the gap in a careful relative is much less natural because kehilangan has no ordinary meN-/di- voice pair. Indonesian normally reorganizes the clause around the missing item:

Dokumen yang hilang dari meja kami kemarin ternyata tertinggal di ruang rapat.

The document that went missing from our desk yesterday turned out to have been left in the meeting room.

Use Dokumen itu hilang, dokumen itu tertinggal, or dokumen itu dicuri according to the event. Object-like question and pronoun behavior does not guarantee free relativization or a complete voice alternation.

Kedatangan: an affected goal plus an arriving theme

In Kami kedatangan tamu, kami is the affected social goal and tamu is the participant that arrives. The second noun is not an object undergoing an action by kami.

Perpustakaan itu kedatangan rombongan siswa dari luar kota.

That library had a group of out-of-town students arrive.

Kami kedatangan mereka ketika semua kamar sedang dipakai.

We had them arrive when all the rooms were occupied.

Siapa yang datang ke kantor kalian tanpa membuat janji?

Who came to your office without making an appointment?

A putative object relative such as tamu yang kami kedatangan is not the neutral way to identify the visitors. Use the ordinary motion clause tamu yang datang ke tempat kami or a different lexical perspective.

Tamu yang datang ke rumah kami membawa makanan dari Padang.

The guests who came to our house brought food from Padang.

Kami didatangi petugas yang ingin memeriksa meteran air.

We were visited by an officer who wanted to inspect the water meter.

Didatangi is a regular di- passive of mendatangi and can foreground a deliberate visitor. Kedatangan instead packages arrival as something experienced in the subject's domain, often unexpectedly. The related meanings do not create identical arguments.

Full nouns, pronouns, and omitted subjects

Indonesian conversation can replace an affected subject with a pronoun or omit it when discourse supplies the referent. The predicate itself does not change.

Excessive cold

Nadia kedinginan setelah kehujanan dalam perjalanan.

Nadia was freezing after getting caught in the rain. (full noun)

Dia kedinginan setelah menunggu ojek terlalu lama.

She was freezing after waiting too long for a motorcycle taxi. (pronoun)

A: Kenapa gemetar? B: Kedinginan sejak tadi.

A: Why are you shivering? B: Been freezing for a while. (subject omitted; informal)

Loss

Bima kehilangan kartu akses di lantai dua.

Bima lost his access card on the second floor. (full noun)

Dia kehilangan kartu akses saat ruangannya dipindah.

He lost his access card when his office was moved. (pronoun)

A: Sedang cari apa? B: Kehilangan kartu akses.

A: What are you looking for? B: Lost my access card. (subject omitted; informal)

Arrival

Keluarga Nita kedatangan kerabat dari Ambon.

Nita's family had relatives arrive from Ambon. (full noun)

Mereka kedatangan kerabat saat sedang merenovasi rumah.

They had relatives arrive while renovating the house. (pronoun)

A: Kok ramai sekali? B: Kedatangan saudara dari kampung.

A: Why is it so crowded? B: Relatives arrived from back home. (subject omitted; informal)

Omission is pragmatic, not morphological: Indonesian allows a recoverable subject to remain unspoken, while English normally inserts I, we, or they.

Pronouns and clitics keep their hosts

A free subject pronoun precedes the predicate. Object-like -nya after kehilangan attaches to the predicate; possessive -nya attaches to its noun.

Saya kehilangan tasnya di ruang penitipan.

I lost his/her bag in the cloakroom. (-nya possesses tas)

Saya kehilangannya di ruang penitipan barang.

I lost it/him/her in the baggage-storage room. (-nya is the lost theme)

Context must resolve the pronoun's reference. Standard spelling does not separate -nya from tas or kehilangan.

Changed order changes the clause's center

Indonesian often describes the same situation by choosing a different subject rather than freely moving noun phrases around.

Ruangan itu dingin, tetapi saya kedinginan setelah duduk dekat jendela.

The room is cold, but I was freezing after sitting near the window.

Dompetnya hilang di kereta, jadi dia melapor kepada kondektur.

His/Her wallet went missing on the train, so he/she reported it to the conductor.

Tiga tamu datang saat kami baru menutup toko.

Three guests arrived just as we were closing the shop.

The first clause of each comparison centers the property, missing item, or mover. Saya kedinginan, dia kehilangan dompet, and kami kedatangan tamu center the affected experiencer or goal instead.

Fronted settings do not reverse roles:

Tadi malam, kami kedatangan tamu dari kantor pusat.

Last night, we had guests arrive from headquarters.

Di terminal itu, Rudi kehilangan dua lembar tiket.

At that terminal, Rudi lost two tickets.

Locative di remains a separate preposition. Kami and Rudi are still the affected subjects after the initial frame setter.

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When a different participant should become the topic, choose a construction that selects it as subject—dompetnya hilang, tamu datang, kami didatangi petugas—instead of treating Indonesian word order as free rearrangement.

Agent and cause expression

These predicates generally do not license an oleh agent. State causes take karena/akibat; loss causes are described in another clause; arriving people are themes or visitors, not passive agents.

Lina kehilangan ponselnya karena ceroboh saat turun dari taksi.

Lina lost her phone because she was careless when getting out of the taxi.

Seorang pencopet mencuri ponsel Lina ketika pintu bus terbuka.

A pickpocket stole Lina's phone when the bus door opened.

Ponsel Lina dicuri oleh pencopet di halte terakhir.

Lina's phone was stolen by a pickpocket at the final stop.

The three clauses distinguish cause, actor voice, and patient voice. Do not add oleh pencopet directly after kehilangan ponsel.

Common Mistakes

Treating the experiencer as an object because English says “happen to”

❌ Kedinginan terjadi kepada saya sepanjang perjalanan.

Awkward English-shaped analysis for a simple experiential predicate.

✅ Saya kedinginan sepanjang perjalanan karena jaket saya basah.

I was freezing throughout the journey because my jacket was wet.

Reversing the loss roles

❌ Dompet kehilangan dia di dalam kereta.

Incorrect — the affected possessor, not the lost wallet, is the subject of kehilangan.

✅ Dia kehilangan dompet kecilnya di dalam kereta malam.

He/She lost the small wallet on the night train.

Treating the arriving participant as an ordinary object

❌ Tamu itu dikedatangkan kami tanpa pemberitahuan.

Incorrect for an unplanned arrival — this causative-looking form changes the structure.

✅ Kami kedatangan tamu tanpa pemberitahuan pada hari Minggu.

We had a guest arrive without notice on Sunday.

Adding an oleh-agent to kehilangan

❌ Rina kehilangan laptop oleh pencuri di kafe.

Incorrect — kehilangan does not license the thief as an oleh-agent.

✅ Laptop Rina dicuri oleh seseorang ketika ia memesan minuman.

Rina's laptop was stolen by someone while she was ordering a drink.

Separating a clitic or joining locative di

❌ Saya kehilangan nya didalam ruang rapat.

Incorrect spelling — object -nya attaches, while locative di is separate.

✅ Saya kehilangannya di dalam ruang rapat yang besar.

I lost it in the large meeting room.

Key Takeaways

The preverbal affected participant behaves as subject in continuation and relativization.
Kedinginan is one-participant; kehilangan licenses an object-like lost theme; kedatangan presents an arriving theme inside an affected-goal frame.
Argument status is predicate-specific: position alone does not make every following noun an ordinary object.
Pronoun omission follows discourse recoverability, while -nya remains attached to its lexical host.
To center another participant, choose another predicate or voice rather than mechanically rearranging the same words.

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