Knowing that diperbesar is well formed does not yet tell you where its participants go, whether a nearby derivative would be more idiomatic, or how the verb sounds in conversation. In use, diper- is a passive schema: the affected participant occupies the grammatical subject position, the actor is optional, and an expressed third-person actor normally appears in an oleh phrase.
This page treats those usage decisions and the boundary between a productive pattern and stored vocabulary. See the formation page for spelling and base categories, and the meaning page for scalar and lexicalized readings.
Valency: the patient becomes the clause anchor
The active and passive members describe the same broad event but organize its arguments differently:
| Voice | Pattern | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Active | ACTOR + memper-verb + PATIENT | Juruteknik memperbesar imej itu. |
| Passive | PATIENT + diper-verb + (oleh + ACTOR) | Imej itu diperbesar oleh juruteknik. |
Juruteknik memperbesar imej kamera litar tertutup itu.
The technician enlarged the CCTV image.
Imej kamera litar tertutup itu diperbesar oleh juruteknik.
The CCTV image was enlarged by the technician.
Pihak penganjur memperpanjang tempoh pendaftaran.
The organizers extended the registration period.
Tempoh pendaftaran diperpanjang hingga tengah malam esok.
The registration period was extended until midnight tomorrow.
The actor disappears naturally from the last example because the announcement concerns the new deadline. This omission does not make the sentence incomplete. It is one reason diper- forms are common in notices, reports, and administrative prose (formal).
English speakers often assume that a passive must contain a phrase equivalent to by the organizers. Neither language requires that phrase, but Malay institutional writing omits it particularly readily when the authority is obvious or irrelevant.
Aspect and modal material precedes the passive verb: telah diperbesar, sedang diperluas, akan diperpanjang, mesti dipercepat. Negation likewise stands outside it: tidak diperbesar or belum diperpanjang. None of these words changes the valency pattern. The patient still anchors the clause, and an optional agent still follows in an oleh phrase. This makes long formal predicates easy to parse once the solid diper- verb has been identified.
Active clauses and passive noun phrases
The active counterpart is useful when responsibility matters. Compare an institutional announcement with a sentence assigning an action to a particular body.
Jawatankuasa khas mempercepat proses semakan selepas menerima aduan.
The special committee expedited the review process after receiving a complaint.
Proses semakan dipercepat selepas aduan diterima.
The review process was expedited after the complaint was received.
Inside a noun phrase, a yang + diper-verb relative clause describes the affected referent: imej yang diperbesar, tempoh yang diperpanjang, proses yang dipercepat. These are clauses embedded inside noun phrases, not freely inflected English-style participial adjectives.
Sila lampirkan imej yang diperbesar bersama-sama laporan asal.
Please attach the enlarged image together with the original report.
Tempoh yang diperpanjang itu memberi peserta masa untuk membetulkan dokumen.
The extended period gives participants time to correct their documents.
Permohonan yang dipercepat masih tertakluk pada semakan keselamatan.
An expedited application is still subject to a security review.
English can place enlarged, extended, and expedited directly before a noun. Malay more transparently uses yang plus the passive verb. Headlines and highly compressed official labels may omit material (formal), but learners should master the full relative construction first.
Competition with neighboring affixes
Three nearby patterns must not be collapsed:
- diperbesar belongs to the memperbesar adjective family and means “made larger than before”;
- dibesarkan belongs to membesarkan and can mean “made big,” “treated as important,” or, with a child, “raised”;
- diperbesar-besarkan is a reduplicated lexical expression meaning that something is exaggerated.
Anak itu dibesarkan oleh datuk dan neneknya di Kuala Kangsar.
The child was raised by his grandparents in Kuala Kangsar.
Substituting diperbesar here would be wrong: a child is not being enlarged. With physical size, gambar itu dibesarkan may occur in ordinary usage, while the prescriptive diperbesar family makes the “larger than before” relation especially explicit. Choose by established meaning, not by counting syllables.
The same caution applies to diperpanjang and dipanjangkan. Diperpanjang conventionally expresses extension in length or duration; dipanjangkan kepada pihak atasan can belong to the lexical use of memanjangkan “forward, pass on.” A final -kan is therefore not a stylistic alternative that can be added or deleted anywhere.
Aduan itu telah dipanjangkan kepada pengarah untuk tindakan lanjut.
The complaint has been forwarded to the director for further action.
Tempoh maklum balas diperpanjang selama tujuh hari.
The response period was extended by seven days.
The nouns select different lexical readings: an aduan is forwarded, whereas a tempoh is extended.
Formal distribution and conversational paraphrase
Passive diper- is neutral in well-edited writing and particularly efficient in institutional contexts (formal). It allows an organization to announce a changed procedure without making the organization the topic.
Tarikh tutup permohonan diperpanjang hingga 15 Oktober 2026.
The application deadline has been extended until 15 October 2026. (formal)
Pelaksanaan projek akan dipercepat bagi mengurangkan gangguan lalu lintas.
Project implementation will be expedited to reduce traffic disruption. (formal)
In spontaneous Malaysian conversation (informal), speakers often choose a shorter active paraphrase with a general actor or a colloquial bare causative. The following pairs preserve the practical message but not the same syntactic packaging:
| Formal passive | Conversational paraphrase |
|---|---|
| Imej itu diperbesar. | Buat gambar tu lagi besar. **(informal)** |
| Tempoh itu diperpanjang. | Mereka bagi masa lagi. **(informal)** |
| Proses itu dipercepat. | Mereka cepatkan proses tu. **(informal)** |
Buat gambar tu lagi besar; nombornya tak nampak.
Make that picture bigger; the number isn't visible. (informal)
Mereka bagi masa lagi sampai hari Jumaat.
They're giving us more time until Friday. (informal)
Mereka cepatkan proses tu sebab penerbangan saya esok.
They're speeding that process up because my flight is tomorrow. (informal)
The colloquial pronoun tu and the bare form cepatkan are marked (informal) here. They are useful listening knowledge, not replacements for diper- in a formal application or report.
Lexical families must be learned whole
The productive adjective schema coexists with strongly lexicalized verbs. Diperoleh is the passive of memperoleh “obtain”; diperalat commonly means “be exploited”; diperdaya means “be deceived.” Their valency follows ordinary passive organization, but their meanings cannot be reconstructed word for word from oleh, alat, and daya.
Maklumat itu diperoleh daripada rekod yang telah dinyahnamakan.
The information was obtained from records that had been anonymized.
Pekerja asing itu mendakwa dirinya diperalat oleh ejen yang tidak berlesen.
The migrant worker claimed that he had been exploited by an unlicensed agent.
A dictionary entry proves that a word exists; it does not prove that its meaning is fully compositional, that it is frequent in conversation, or that analogous coinages are acceptable. Learn a transparent schema—especially adjective families—alongside individual lexical families.
Selection by the surrounding noun is often decisive. Data diperoleh, mangsa diperdaya, and pekerja diperalat are established pairings because each verb names a different event. Replacing one with another merely because all begin with diper- destroys the lexical meaning. Corpus familiarity helps, but productive writing should still begin from a dictionary-confirmed family and an attested object type.
Formal passive clauses can also obscure responsibility. If an actor matters ethically or legally, omitting it may be grammatically valid but rhetorically unhelpful. Proses itu dipercepat reports a changed timetable; Jawatankuasa mempercepat proses itu assigns the action to the committee. Advanced control includes choosing the voice that fits the communicative purpose, not simply preferring the longer-looking form.
Common Mistakes
1. Keeping active word order with a passive verb.
❌ Juruteknik diperbesar imej itu.
Incorrect — diperbesar is passive; this actor-first frame requires memperbesar.
✅ Juruteknik memperbesar imej itu.
The technician enlarged the image.
2. Treating an agent phrase as compulsory.
❌ Tempoh pendaftaran diperpanjang oleh.
Incorrect — oleh cannot stand alone, and the actor may simply be omitted.
✅ Tempoh pendaftaran diperpanjang hingga Ahad.
The registration period was extended until Sunday.
3. Using diperbesar for bringing up a child.
❌ Amir diperbesar oleh ibu saudaranya sejak kecil.
Incorrect lexical choice — raising a child uses dibesarkan.
✅ Amir dibesarkan oleh ibu saudaranya sejak kecil.
Amir was raised by his aunt from childhood.
4. Assuming a listed form has a literal root-by-root meaning.
❌ Mangsa itu diperdaya, jadi dia dibuat lebih berdaya.
Incorrect interpretation — diperdaya means 'was deceived.'
✅ Mangsa itu diperdaya supaya menyerahkan kata laluan.
The victim was deceived into handing over the password.
Key Takeaways
- Diper- anchors the clause on the affected participant; a third-person actor can appear in oleh + actor or remain unexpressed.
- Active memper- clauses foreground responsibility, while passive diper- clauses foreground the changed entity or process.
- Use yang diperbesar, yang diperpanjang, and yang dipercepat inside ordinary descriptive noun phrases.
- Neighboring di-...-kan forms may have distinct lexical meanings; final -kan is not optional decoration.
- Formal passive usage and informal active paraphrase can convey the same practical update while packaging the event differently.
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- diper-: Formation and Allomorphy in Malaysian MalayB2 — Learn how Malaysian Malay forms passive diper- verbs, preserves the base, and distinguishes this prefix from di as a preposition.
- diper-: Meanings and Derivational Network in Malaysian MalayC1 — Understand how diper- presents changes and lexical events from the affected participant's point of view.
- memper-: Valency, Lexicalization, and Register in Malaysian MalayB2 — Use established Malaysian memper- verbs with their natural objects, passive forms, competitors, and registers.
- di- Passive: Choosing This Construction in Malaysian MalayA2 — Choose the di- passive when an affected, usually identifiable participant—not its actor—is the clause's discourse center.
- di- Passive versus Object Voice in Malaysian MalayB1 — Choose di- passive or bare-verb object voice from the actor type, patient prominence, and information structure.