The per-...-an construction is best learned as a productive schema plus lexical families. It can turn a verbal scene into a noun phrase, but it also supplies established words whose meanings and argument patterns must be stored: pertemuan “meeting,” perjalanan “journey,” perpustakaan “library,” and peraturan “regulation.” Treating the construction as pure grammar overgenerates; treating every derivative as unrelated vocabulary hides useful structure.
This page covers valency, lexicalization, competition, and register. See formation and allomorphy for per-/pe-/pel- shapes and spelling, and meanings and derivational network for event, domain, place, and collective readings.
From a clause to a noun phrase
When an event is packaged as a per-...-an noun, its participants no longer occupy the same grammatical positions they had in the clause. A verbal subject or complement commonly becomes a postnominal possessor, a phrase with dengan, or a phrase with antara. The noun can then be counted, scheduled, described, or made the topic of another clause.
| Active clause | Related noun phrase | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Pengurus bertemu dengan pembekal. | pertemuan pengurus dengan pembekal | participants follow the event noun |
| Kedua-dua pihak bertemu. | pertemuan antara kedua-dua pihak | reciprocal participants use antara |
| Kami berjalan dari kampung ke air terjun. | perjalanan kami dari kampung ke air terjun | traveller becomes a possessor-like phrase |
| Jawatankuasa mengatur jadual. | pengaturan jadual oleh jawatankuasa | the act of arranging selects a neighboring noun, not peraturan |
Pengurus bertemu dengan pembekal pada pukul tiga petang.
The manager is meeting the supplier at three in the afternoon. (neutral)
Pertemuan pengurus dengan pembekal itu ditangguhkan hingga esok.
The manager's meeting with the supplier was postponed until tomorrow. (formal/neutral)
Kedua-dua pihak bertemu untuk membincangkan harga baharu.
Both parties met to discuss the new price. (neutral)
Pertemuan antara kedua-dua pihak berlangsung selama dua jam.
The meeting between the two parties lasted for two hours. (formal)
English also turns clauses into noun phrases, but its prepositions do not map mechanically onto Malay. Learn pertemuan dengan seseorang, pertemuan antara A dengan B, and pertemuan tentang sesuatu perkara as constructions rather than translating every English of, with, or between separately.
Pertemuan: a reciprocal event with participants
Pertemuan conventionally construes an encounter or organized meeting. It can take a possessor-like participant directly after it, another participant with dengan, paired sides with antara, and a subject matter with tentang or mengenai. These phrases are not direct objects; the derived form is a noun.
Dalam pertemuan saya dengan penyelia, kami membincangkan kemajuan tesis.
In my meeting with the supervisor, we discussed the progress of the thesis. (neutral/academic)
Pertemuan tentang pelan pemindahan itu akan diadakan pada hari Khamis.
The meeting about the relocation plan will be held on Thursday. (formal)
To highlight the act of finding or discovering rather than meeting, Malay uses penemuan, a peN-...-an noun. The formal contrast is matched by a semantic one.
Pertemuan dengan penduduk kampung itu membawa kepada penemuan tapak lama.
The meeting with the villagers led to the discovery of an old site. (formal/news)
Neither word is a spelling variant. Pertemuan keeps t and packages a meeting; penemuan shows nasal allomorphy and packages a discovery.
Perjalanan: participants, path, and extent
Perjalanan can name a physical journey or a metaphorical course. A traveller may appear directly after the noun (perjalanan kami), while source, destination, route, duration, and means are expressed by ordinary phrases: dari..., ke..., melalui..., selama..., and dengan.... These are extensions of the journey concept, not arguments predicted by the affix alone.
Kami berjalan dari kampung itu ke air terjun sebelum tengah hari.
We walked from that village to the waterfall before noon. (neutral; active clause)
Perjalanan kami dari kampung itu ke air terjun mengambil masa hampir dua jam.
Our journey from that village to the waterfall took almost two hours. (neutral)
Dokumentari itu merakam perjalanan kerjaya seorang pemain badminton negara.
The documentary chronicles the career journey of a national badminton player. (formal/media)
The lexicalized metaphor perjalanan kerjaya “career journey/course” cannot be predicted just by adding a circumfix to jalan. It is licensed by conventional metaphor and collocation. English similarly extends journey, but the acceptable combinations in the two languages are not guaranteed to match.
Perpustakaan: an institutional noun, not an event frame
Although perpustakaan is morphologically related to pustaka, its modern meaning “library” is an institution, collection, or building. It does not inherit an active verbal valency frame. A following noun normally identifies ownership, affiliation, or subtype: perpustakaan universiti, perpustakaan sekolah, perpustakaan awam.
Perpustakaan universiti itu menyediakan akses kepada jurnal elektronik.
The university library provides access to electronic journals. (formal/academic)
Saya nak pulangkan buku ini ke perpustakaan petang nanti.
I want to return this book to the library later this afternoon. (informal)
The meaning is not “the act of doing something to books.” English speakers should resist forcing an of-phrase or an agent/patient analysis onto every derived noun. Perpustakaan has become a concrete institutional lexeme, even though its morphology remains recognizable.
Peraturan versus the act of arranging
Peraturan means a rule, regulation, or body of regulations. A following noun often classifies its domain: peraturan keselamatan, peraturan sekolah, peraturan imigresen. The person or institution issuing the rule is more naturally expressed through context, a possessor, or a relative clause than as the agent of a transparent nominalized act.
Semua pekerja mesti mematuhi peraturan keselamatan syarikat.
All workers must comply with the company's safety regulations. (formal/workplace)
Jawatankuasa mengatur jadual pembentangan mengikut bidang.
The committee arranges the presentation schedule by field. (formal; active clause)
Pengaturan jadual pembentangan dibuat oleh jawatankuasa program.
The arrangement of the presentation schedule was carried out by the programme committee. (formal/administrative)
The last example selects pengaturan, a neighboring peN-...-an process noun, because it profiles the act of arranging. Peraturan jadual would ordinarily be understood as a rule concerning a schedule, not the arranging of that schedule. This contrast shows why shared roots do not guarantee interchangeable derivatives.
Productive schema plus lexical families
The construction remains structurally available across several semantic domains, but a logically possible derivative is not automatically a Malaysian word. Some forms are highly transparent (pertemuan), some have conventional extensions (perjalanan), and some are strongly lexicalized (perpustakaan, persatuan “association”). A Malaysian dictionary is needed when the form or meaning is unfamiliar.
English nominal suffixes encourage overgeneration because one can often improvise -ing, -tion, or -ment. Malay distributes corresponding meanings across per-...-an, peN-...-an, ke-...-an, -an, bare nouns, and clauses. The intended perspective and the stored lexical family both matter.
Persatuan penduduk akan mengadakan mesyuarat agung pada bulan depan.
The residents' association will hold its annual general meeting next month. (formal)
No current speaker needs to compute “association” compositionally from every part of persatuan when using it. The word behaves as a conventional institution noun, just as English association does.
Formal packaging and conversational paraphrase
Per-...-an nouns are common in reports, regulations, institutional announcements, and academic prose because a noun phrase can become a stable topic. Conversation often prefers a verb or a shorter everyday clause. The formal noun is not inherently unnatural; it serves a different information-packaging purpose.
| Packaged wording | Conversational alternative |
|---|---|
| Pertemuan akan diadakan esok. | Kita jumpa esok. |
| Perjalanan mengambil masa dua jam. | Nak sampai sana ambil masa dua jam. |
| Peraturan tersebut hendaklah dipatuhi. | Kena ikut peraturan itu. |
| Perpustakaan ditutup pada hari Ahad. | Hari Ahad perpustakaan tutup. |
Pertemuan susulan akan diadakan bagi menilai kemajuan projek.
A follow-up meeting will be held to assess the project's progress. (formal)
Kita jumpa lagi minggu depan untuk tengok perkembangan projek, ya.
Let's meet again next week to see how the project is going, okay? (informal)
Para pemohon hendaklah mematuhi semua peraturan yang dinyatakan.
Applicants shall comply with all the stated regulations. (formal/administrative)
Ikut saja peraturan itu; nanti urusan lebih mudah.
Just follow that rule; things will be easier later. (informal)
The clipped nak and discourse particle ya are appropriate only in the conversational examples (informal). Formal prose retains fuller syntax. Register choice affects the whole clause, not the derived noun in isolation: peraturan itself occurs naturally in both styles.
Common Mistakes
1. Keeping verbal argument structure inside the noun phrase.
❌ Pertemuan pengurus pembekal berlangsung sejam.
Unclear — two adjacent participants do not show their relationship; use dengan or antara.
✅ Pertemuan pengurus dengan pembekal berlangsung selama sejam.
The manager's meeting with the supplier lasted an hour. (formal/neutral)
2. Using peraturan for the act of arranging.
❌ Peraturan jadual oleh urus setia mengambil masa dua hari.
Wrong derivative for the intended process — peraturan normally means a rule or regulation.
✅ Pengaturan jadual oleh urus setia mengambil masa dua hari.
The arranging of the schedule by the secretariat took two days. (formal)
3. Treating a lexicalized institution as fully compositional.
❌ Perpustakaan ialah perbuatan memustakakan sesuatu.
Incorrect — perpustakaan conventionally means a library, not a transparently computed action.
✅ Perpustakaan awam itu mempunyai ruang bacaan kanak-kanak.
That public library has a children's reading area. (neutral)
4. Coining every logically possible derivative.
❌ Tambahkan per-...-an pada apa-apa kata kerja untuk membentuk kata nama.
Incorrect rule — the schema has lexical and semantic restrictions.
✅ Semak bentuk terbitan dalam kamus bahasa Melayu sebelum menggunakannya.
Check the derived form in a Malay dictionary before using it. (formal advice)
5. Confusing an event noun with an active verb.
❌ Pertemuan kita akan melaksanakan pada esok hari.
Incorrect — pertemuan cannot serve as the actor of transitive melaksanakan in this frame.
✅ Kita jumpa esok, ya.
Let's meet tomorrow, okay? (informal)
Key Takeaways
- A per-...-an event noun changes a clause's participants into postnominal, prepositional, or possessor-like phrases.
- Learn complement frames such as pertemuan dengan X, antara A dengan B, and perjalanan kami dari X ke Y.
- Perpustakaan and peraturan are lexicalized; their modern meanings are not fully computed from their parts.
- Neighboring affixes can change perspective: peraturan is a regulation, while pengaturan profiles arranging (formal).
- Formal prose favors packaged noun phrases; conversation often favors jumpa, pergi, or a shorter clause.
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Start learning Malay →Related Topics
- per-...-an: Formation and Allomorphy in Malaysian MalayB2 — Build Malaysian per-...-an nouns with a two-part circumfix, recognize lexical pe- and pel- variants, and preserve root consonants.
- per-...-an: Meanings and Derivational Network in Malaysian MalayC1 — Understand how Malaysian per-...-an nouns construe bounded events, organized domains, places, collectives, and conventional systems.
- peN-...-an: Valency, Lexicalization, and Register in Malaysian MalayC1 — Use peN-...-an nouns with their retained participants, lexical competitors, and formal or conversational alternatives.
- Abstract Nouns with ke-...-an in Malaysian MalayB2 — Understand how ke-...-an forms qualities, states, lexicalized nouns, and experiences that affect a participant.
- 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.