peN-...-an creates nouns, but many of those nouns retain the conceptual participants of an underlying event. A writer must decide how to express the actor, affected entity, content, or recipient inside a noun phrase—and whether a peN-...-an noun is actually the conventional Malaysian choice. This is where productive morphology meets valency, lexicalization, and register.
The formation page handles allomorphy and consonant deletion; the meaning page maps process, result, and domain readings. This page shows how the derivatives behave in real clauses and why formal nominal style often has a clearer conversational paraphrase.
From active clause to event noun phrase
Start with an actor-oriented clause. The verb organizes its participants directly:
Kerajaan negeri membangunkan kawasan itu secara berperingkat.
The state government is developing the area in phases. (formal)
Nominalization turns the event into a noun phrase. The affected entity can follow the noun directly, while the actor can appear with oleh if it must be explicit.
Pembangunan kawasan itu oleh kerajaan negeri dilaksanakan secara berperingkat.
The development of the area by the state government is being implemented in phases. (formal)
The noun pembangunan no longer carries tense or aspect as a verb. Instead, a surrounding predicate such as dilaksanakan, bermula, berterusan, or selesai locates and characterizes the process. The actor phrase is often omitted when it is known or institutionally unimportant.
Pembangunan kawasan itu masih belum selesai.
Development of the area is still not complete.
Participant patterns are lexical, not uniform
Different nominal families retain different relations. Pengumuman naturally introduces what is announced; pengajaran can introduce a subject matter and a learner group; penelitian commonly introduces the material or issue examined. Prepositions make the less central roles explicit.
Pengumuman jadual baharu oleh pihak sekolah mengejutkan ibu bapa.
The school's announcement of the new timetable surprised the parents. (formal)
Pengajaran sains kepada murid sekolah rendah memerlukan banyak demonstrasi.
Teaching science to primary-school pupils requires many demonstrations. (formal)
Penelitian terhadap rekod lama itu mengenal pasti beberapa percanggahan.
Careful examination of the old records identified several inconsistencies. (formal/academic)
Do not copy English of mechanically. Malay may place a dependent noun directly after the head, use terhadap for a target of examination or policy, use kepada for a recipient, and use oleh for an actor. The choice belongs to the lexical relation and the desired clarity.
An actor expressed without oleh can be interpreted as possessor, source, or institutional label: pengumuman kementerian usually means “the ministry's announcement,” but the exact relation comes from context. Oleh kementerian explicitly identifies the announcer.
The verb may reveal more than the noun
Heavy nominalization is valuable when a process itself is the topic, especially in reports and academic prose. It can also hide responsibility. Compare a formal noun-heavy sentence with an active paraphrase:
Penelitian semula permohonan tersebut akan dilaksanakan oleh jawatankuasa khas.
A re-examination of the application will be carried out by a special committee. (formal)
Jawatankuasa khas akan meneliti semula permohonan itu.
A special committee will re-examine the application.
The second version names the actor early and is usually clearer. Neither is inherently superior: the nominal version suits a discussion where penelitian semula is already the topic; the active version suits instructions and ordinary explanation. Skilled writing varies information structure rather than replacing every verb with an abstract noun.
Competition with neighbouring nominalizers
Malay offers several ways to build nouns, but they do not freely alternate.
| Pattern | Typical perspective | Contrast |
|---|---|---|
| peN-...-an | agent-related process, organized activity, result, domain | penulisan laporan “the writing/production of a report” |
| -an | product, result, item, collection | tulisan pada papan “the writing/text on the board” |
| per-...-an | bounded event, organized sphere, reciprocal event, place/domain | pertemuan wakil “a meeting of representatives” |
| ke-...-an | quality, state, domain, affected experience | kesihatan awam “public health” |
| peN- | actor, instrument, or characteristic participant | pengajar “instructor” |
Penulisan laporan itu mengambil masa dua minggu.
Writing the report took two weeks. (formal)
Tulisan pada papan putih itu sudah dipadam.
The writing on the whiteboard has been erased.
English uses writing for both, which encourages transfer errors. Malaysian Malay conventionally distinguishes the production process penulisan from the visible product tulisan. Yet even this contrast is lexical rather than a universal equation: another base may divide its meanings differently.
Lexicalization and blocked coinages
peN-...-an is productive, especially in formal vocabulary and with technical loans, but morphological possibility does not guarantee an accepted word. Pengajaran has the lexicalized result meaning “lesson/moral”; pengumuman names a communicative product; pembangunan covers development as a major policy domain. These meanings cannot be calculated from the circumfix alone.
Some potential derivatives lose to an established competitor. Speakers normally use pembacaan for an act or interpretation of reading, but use bacaan for reading material or a meter reading. They do not choose solely by wrapping whichever English noun seems abstract in peN-...-an.
Pembacaan saya terhadap cerpen itu berubah selepas perbincangan kelas.
My interpretation of the short story changed after the class discussion. (academic)
Bacaan meter air bulan ini lebih tinggi daripada biasa.
This month's water-meter reading is higher than usual.
The honest learning strategy is to verify the derivative and its collocations in a Malaysian dictionary or corpus. Store families together, but give every member its own meaning and frame.
Formal preference and conversational unpacking
peN-...-an nouns are especially frequent in administration, journalism, technical prose, and academic writing (formal/academic). Conversation does use established forms—pengumuman and pembangunan are ordinary words—but speakers often prefer a finite verb when discussing a concrete event (informal/neutral).
Pengumuman keputusan pemilihan akan dibuat pada pukul lima petang.
The announcement of the election result will be made at five in the afternoon. (formal)
Mereka akan umumkan keputusan pemilihan pukul lima nanti.
They'll announce the election result at five later. (informal)
Pembangunan modul tersebut memerlukan penelitian lanjut terhadap kaedah pengajaran sedia ada.
Development of the module requires further examination of the existing teaching method. (formal/administrative)
Kita kena teliti lagi cara cikgu mengajar sebelum teruskan rancangan itu.
We need to look again at how the teacher teaches before continuing that plan. (informal)
The conversational paraphrase does not preserve each noun word for word. It restores actors and actions: meneliti, mengajar, teruskan. This is often more idiomatic than carrying a chain of abstract nouns into casual speech.
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving verbal word order unchanged inside a noun phrase.
❌ Pengumuman oleh pihak sekolah jadual baharu dibuat semalam.
Awkward ordering — the announced content is separated from pengumuman.
✅ Pengumuman jadual baharu oleh pihak sekolah dibuat semalam.
The school's announcement of the new timetable was made yesterday. (formal)
2. Using peN-...-an for the human actor.
❌ Pengajaran itu akan menjawab soalan peserta.
Incorrect if the instructor is meant — pengajaran denotes teaching or a lesson.
✅ Pengajar itu akan menjawab soalan peserta.
The instructor will answer the participants' questions.
3. Choosing a process noun where a concrete result noun is conventional.
❌ Saya tidak dapat membaca penulisan pada papan itu.
Unnatural for visible written marks — penulisan foregrounds the writing process or composition.
✅ Saya tidak dapat membaca tulisan pada papan itu.
I cannot read the writing on the board.
4. Carrying bureaucratic nominal style into casual conversation.
❌ Pelaksanaan pengambilan makanan akan saya lakukan sekarang.
Grammatically interpretable but comically bureaucratic for saying you are about to eat.
✅ Saya nak makan sekarang.
I want to eat now. (informal)
5. Coining a derivative without checking Malaysian usage.
❌ Semua kata kerja boleh dijadikan kata nama dengan peN-...-an.
Incorrect claim — productivity is constrained by lexical convention and competing nominalizers.
✅ Bentuk terbitan baharu perlu disemak dalam kamus bahasa Melayu berwibawa yang diterbitkan di Malaysia.
A new derivative needs to be checked in an authoritative Malay dictionary published in Malaysia.
Key Takeaways
- peN-...-an nouns retain event participants, but express them through nominal order and phrases such as oleh, kepada, and terhadap.
- Directly following content is normally kept close to the noun: pembangunan kawasan, pengumuman keputusan, pengajaran bahasa.
- Competing -an, per-...-an, ke-...-an, and bare peN- forms profile different parts of a lexical family.
- Formal prose favours nominalization; conversation often unpacks it into a clear actor and finite verb.
- Productivity never removes the need to learn attested Malaysian forms, meanings, and collocations.
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Start learning Malay →Related Topics
- peN-...-an: Formation and Allomorphy in Malaysian MalayB2 — Form Malaysian peN-...-an nouns with the correct nasal allomorph, root-initial alternation, and solid spelling.
- peN-...-an: Meanings and Derivational Network in Malaysian MalayC1 — Understand how peN-...-an packages actions as processes, organized activities, results, and institutional domains.
- per-...-an: Valency, Lexicalization, and Register in Malaysian MalayC1 — Use per-...-an nouns with their conventional participants, complements, competing derivatives, and formal or conversational alternatives.
- -an: Valency, Lexicalization, and Register in Malaysian MalayB2 — Use -an nouns naturally by learning their participant phrases, lexicalized senses, register, and contrasts with longer nominalizers.
- peN-: Valency, Lexicalization, and Register in Malaysian MalayC1 — Use Malaysian peN- nouns naturally by reshaping verbal arguments as noun modifiers and respecting lexical, collocational, and register constraints.
- Nominalization: Events, Actors, Results, and Qualities in Malaysian MalayB1 — See how peN-, -an, ke-...-an, peN-...-an, per-...-an, and unmarked roots select different facets of an event or state.