In a di- passive, the affected participant normally stands before the passive verb, while the actor is optional and follows the verb. Thus Rina membaca buku itu and Buku itu dibaca Rina describe the same reading event but organize its arguments differently. The second clause is about buku itu, not merely an English sentence with its words rearranged.
Malay nouns do not display case endings that label “subject” and “object.” Argument status emerges from voice morphology, word order, relativization, and discourse together. This page focuses only on those argument relations; formation begins on the di- passive overview, while discourse choice, marker combinations, and advanced register receive their own pages.
Core argument map
| Voice | Neutral order | Event |
|---|---|---|
| actor voice | Rina membaca buku itu. | Rina reads that book. |
| di- passive, bare agent | Buku itu dibaca Rina. | That book is read by Rina. |
| di- passive, oleh-agent | Surat itu ditulis oleh Ali. | That letter was written by Ali. |
| agentless di- passive | Kuncinya diambil. | The key was taken. |
Rina membaca buku itu di perpustakaan.
Rina reads that book in the library.
Buku itu dibaca Rina di perpustakaan.
That book is read by Rina in the library.
The prefix di- remains attached to the verb. It signals the voice relation; it is not the locative word di “at/in.”
The affected participant as subject and pivot
In the ordinary di- passive, the patient, theme, recipient, or other selected affected participant becomes the clause's grammatical subject or pivot. It can be what the clause continues discussing, what a relative clause leaves unexpressed, and what is evaluated as definite or identifiable.
Surat itu ditulis oleh Ali selepas mesyuarat.
That letter was written by Ali after the meeting.
Kuncinya diambil dari atas meja tanpa pengetahuan saya.
The key was taken from the table without my knowledge.
Surat itu and kuncinya are not postverbal active objects moved for decoration. Passive morphology makes their privileged status part of the grammar.
A useful diagnostic is patient relativization:
Inilah buku yang dibaca Rina semalam.
This is the book that Rina read yesterday.
Inside yang dibaca Rina, the missing role is the book, the passive subject/pivot. To make Rina the missing relative participant, Malay normally changes voice: Rina yang membaca buku itu “Rina, who read that book.” Voice and relativization thus support the argument analysis together.
Expressing a full-noun agent
A third-person full noun can follow the passive verb directly or appear after oleh.
Bilik itu dibersihkan pekerja hotel setiap pagi.
That room is cleaned by hotel staff every morning.
Bilik itu dibersihkan oleh pekerja hotel setiap pagi.
That room is cleaned by hotel staff every morning.
The bare agent is compact and common. Oleh makes the agent boundary explicit and is useful when the agent phrase is long, coordinated, or emphasized.
Laporan itu disediakan oleh pasukan penyelidik dari tiga buah universiti.
The report was prepared by a research team from three universities. (formal)
With an agentless passive, the speaker can omit an unknown, obvious, irrelevant, or deliberately unmentioned actor:
Semua tingkap sudah ditutup sebelum hujan turun.
All the windows had been closed before the rain began.
Omission does not mean that the event had no actor. It means the clause does not lexicalize one.
Pronoun agents and the neighboring object voice
Malay treats first- and second-person actors differently from the most neutral third-person di- passive. When saya, kami, kita, awak, or anda is the actor, Malaysian Malay normally favors object voice: affected participant + actor pronoun + bare verb.
Buku tersebut saya baca sepanjang penerbangan ke Kuching.
I read that book throughout the flight to Kuching.
Surat ini perlu anda tandatangani sebelum Jumaat.
You need to sign this letter before Friday. (formal)
The pronoun stands immediately before the bare verb; no di- appears. With a third-person pronoun, Buku itu dibacanya is possible: attached -nya expresses the agent and belongs to a more formal, literary, or compact style.
Cadangan itu diterimanya tanpa sebarang bantahan.
The proposal was accepted by him/her without any objection. (formal/literary)
Buku itu dibaca oleh saya is grammatically possible when the first-person agent is contrastively emphasized—“by me”—but it is not the neutral replacement for Buku itu saya baca. Argument choice and information structure interact.
Changed order, unchanged roles
Compare the following pair:
Ali menulis surat itu pada waktu malam.
Ali wrote that letter at night.
Surat itu ditulis oleh Ali pada waktu malam.
That letter was written by Ali at night.
Ali remains the actor in both; surat itu remains the created theme. Voice changes which role is the subject/pivot and where the roles surface. English learners sometimes call Ali the passive “object” merely because it comes later. That label misses the semantic role: it is still the agent, expressed as a bare or oleh phrase.
The passive subject usually precedes the predicate. Malay permits topicalization and marked orders in wider discourse, but a changed surface position alone does not cancel the voice relation signaled by di-.
Valency with more than two participants
Ditransitive and causative verbs raise a further choice: which affected participant becomes passive subject? Established verb form and lexical valency decide.
Hadiah itu diberikan kepada Siti oleh pihak sekolah.
That gift was given to Siti by the school.
Siti diberi hadiah oleh pihak sekolah.
Siti was given a gift by the school.
In the first, hadiah itu is the theme subject and kepada Siti remains a recipient phrase. In the second, Siti is the recipient subject and hadiah remains after diberi. Malay does not require every passive to preserve the same affected role.
Pintu itu dibukakan untuk tetamu yang membawa kerusi roda.
The door was opened for the guest using a wheelchair.
The suffix in dibukakan belongs to the verb's valency: the event is performed for a beneficiary. Voice selects the pivot, while the lexical verb continues licensing its other participants.
Definiteness and omission
Because the passive subject is commonly the discourse topic, it is often definite or identifiable: buku itu, surat tersebut, kuncinya. This is a strong discourse tendency, not an absolute ban on indefinite subjects.
Beberapa buah rumah dibina berhampiran sungai sebelum garis panduan baharu diperkenalkan.
Several houses were built near the river before the new guidelines were introduced.
Here beberapa buah rumah introduces an indefinite set, but news-like discourse chooses the houses as the event's center. Formal possibility and discourse naturalness must both be considered.
Common Mistakes
1. Keeping active morphology after changing the argument order
❌ Buku itu membaca Rina.
Incorrect voice—this says the book is the reader.
✅ Buku itu dibaca Rina selepas kelas.
That book was read by Rina after class.
2. Separating the passive prefix
❌ Surat itu di tulis oleh Ali.
Incorrect spelling—the passive prefix is attached.
✅ Surat tersebut ditulis oleh Ali selepas makan malam.
That letter was written by Ali after dinner.
3. Forcing di- with a neutral first-person agent
❌ Buku itu dibaca saya semalam.
Poor neutral pronoun pattern—first-person actors normally use object voice.
✅ Buku itu sudah saya baca pada hujung minggu lalu.
I read that book last weekend.
4. Treating an omitted agent as absence of an actor
❌ Kuncinya diambil bermaksud kunci itu bergerak sendiri.
Incorrect interpretation—an agentless passive leaves the actor unstated.
✅ Kuncinya diambil ketika semua orang berada di luar.
The key was taken while everyone was outside.
5. Using oleh for a location
❌ Surat itu ditulis oleh atas meja pada waktu pagi.
Incorrect location phrase—oleh introduces an agent, not a surface where the writing occurred.
✅ Surat itu ditulis di atas meja pada waktu pagi.
That letter was written on the table in the morning.
Key Takeaways
The preverbal affected participant is the ordinary subject/pivot of a di- passive. A full-noun agent follows the verb directly or after oleh, while first- and second-person agents normally trigger object voice instead. Agent omission changes information structure, not the event's semantic roles. Determine argument status through morphology, relativization, valency, and discourse rather than English labels or position alone.
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- di- Passive: Overview and Formation in Malaysian MalayA1 — Form the Malaysian Malay di- passive by placing the affected subject first, attaching di- to the verb, and optionally adding a third-person agent.
- 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: Aspect, Modality, and Negation in Malaysian MalayC1 — Build temporal, modal, and negative meanings by placing preverbal particles before an unchanged di- passive verb.
- di- Passive: Advanced Constraints and Register in Malaysian MalayC1 — Analyze di- passive relativization, extraction, agent placement, lexical limits, agentless discourse, and formal-colloquial distribution.
- meN- Actor Voice: Subjects, Objects, and Argument Order in Malaysian MalayA2 — Identify actor subjects, affected objects, omitted arguments, pronoun positions, and voice alternations in Malaysian Malay meN- clauses.
- Object Voice with a Bare Verb: Subjects, Objects, and Argument Order in Malaysian MalayC1 — Analyze the patient pivot, immediately preverbal first- or second-person agent, bare verb, omitted arguments, and voice alternations in Malaysian object voice.