The suffix -kan is a valency device, not a voice by itself. It combines with actor voice (membacakan), di- passive (dibacakan), and object voice (saya bacakan) while preserving a causative, resultative, moved-theme, or benefactive relation. Advanced usage depends on which participant the lexical verb selects, which one becomes the voice pivot, and whether a particular derivative has acquired a conventional meaning.
This page examines relative clauses, extraction, register, lexical exceptions, and agentless uses. The relative-clause overview provides the wider pivot system; basic formation, argument maps, construction choice, and aspectual particles are treated on the other four -kan pages.
-kan inside the voice system
One event can retain -kan across voice alternations:
| Voice | Clause | Pivot |
|---|---|---|
| actor voice | Ibu membacakan buku kepada anak. | ibu |
| di- passive | Buku dibacakan ibu kepada anak. | buku |
| object voice | Buku itu saya bacakan kepada anak. | buku itu |
Ibu membacakan buku kepada anak setiap malam.
The mother reads a book aloud to the child every night.
Buku itu dibacakan ibu kepada anak sebelum tidur.
That book was read aloud by the mother to the child before bedtime.
Buku itu saya bacakan kepada anak-anak semalam.
I read that book aloud to the children yesterday.
The suffix continues selecting its affected structure; voice morphology and actor placement decide the pivot. Treating -kan as equivalent to English causative make misses this layered architecture.
Relative clauses and pivot selection
A yang relative normally gaps the embedded pivot. Theme relatives therefore use passive or object voice when the actor remains expressed.
Buku yang dibacakan ibu kepada anak itu dipinjam dari perpustakaan.
The book that the mother read aloud to the child was borrowed from the library.
Kunci yang saya masukkan ke dalam sampul itu ialah kunci bilik stor.
The key that I put into the envelope is the storeroom key.
To relativize the actor, switch to actor voice:
Ibu yang membacakan buku kepada anak itu bekerja sebagai guru.
The mother who read the book aloud to the child works as a teacher.
❌ Ibu yang buku itu dibacakan kepada anak bekerja sebagai guru.
Incorrect pivot for an actor relative—the passive selects the book.
✅ Ibu yang membacakan buku itu kepada anak bekerja sebagai guru.
The mother who read that book aloud to the child works as a teacher.
Some licensed benefactive passives select a human recipient: anak yang dibacakan cerita “the child who was read a story.” This possibility belongs to the lexical construction; it does not prove that every untuk/kepada phrase can become a bare gap.
Goals resist direct extraction
The goal in memasukkan barang ke dalam kotak remains a prepositional/locative phrase. Extracting kotak while deleting its relation leaves the syntax incomplete.
❌ Kotak yang dia memasukkan barang itu sudah penuh.
Incorrect for ‘the box into which...’—the goal relation has disappeared.
✅ Kotak yang dia memasukkan barang itu ke dalamnya sudah penuh.
The box into which he put the item is full. (careful)
A stylistically smoother Malaysian alternative often recasts the location as an affected object with a lexical verb such as mengisi:
Kotak yang diisinya dengan barang itu sudah penuh.
The box that he filled with the items is full.
Malay formal writing commonly avoids deep literal extraction by retaining a resumptive locative, choosing a different valency frame, or splitting the sentence.
Formal and colloquial alternation
Formal actor voice normally displays meN-...-kan, while di-...-kan remains common in institutional patient-centered prose.
Pegawai memasukkan semua rekod ke dalam pangkalan data yang dilindungi.
The officer entered all records into a protected database. (formal)
In colloquial Malaysian, first-/second-person object voice and imperatives lack meN-, but the valency-bearing suffix remains.
Saya masukkan kunci tu dalam laci dulu, ya.
I'll put that key in the drawer first, okay? (informal)
Bukakan pintu sekejap; tangan saya penuh.
Open the door for me a moment; my hands are full. (informal)
The forms masukkan and bukakan are not careless truncations of a suffix. They are licensed voice/imperative forms. Conversely, dropping -kan can change valency: masuk means enter, not put something in.
Colloquial speech can also retain a full passive:
Meja tu dah dibersihkan tadi.
That table was already cleaned earlier. (informal)
Informal tu/dah coexist with standard attached dibersihkan. Voice should not be equated with register.
Lexicalized and nontransparent -kan verbs
Many derivatives fit productive causative or benefactive patterns: memasukkan “cause to enter,” membersihkan “make clean,” membacakan “read aloud for.” Others require lexical learning.
Mengatakan conventionally means say/state, not simply “cause a word.” Melakukan means do/carry out and is not freely decomposed into modern root laku plus a predictable causative. Mendengarkan can mean listen to or heed in careful usage, beside common Malaysian mendengar. Merupakan functions as a formal copular expression “constitutes/is” (formal).
Jurucakap itu mengatakan bahawa siasatan masih berjalan.
The spokesperson stated that the investigation was still ongoing. (formal)
Langkah tersebut merupakan sebahagian daripada pelan pemulihan.
That measure forms part of the recovery plan. (formal)
Do not generate a -kan derivative merely because English uses make, have, or a transitive verb. Corpus attestation and established Malaysian collocation matter.
Some apparent base contrasts are also lexical. Membuka pintu and membukakan pintu untuk seseorang contrast plain and benefactive opening, but many contexts allow the plain verb when the beneficiary is obvious. Morphology profiles a role; it does not mechanically encode every real-world benefit.
Agentless uses
Passive di-...-kan can omit an unknown, generic, obvious, or irrelevant actor while retaining the caused/resultative event.
Semua data dimasukkan ke dalam sistem sebelum laporan dijana.
All data are entered into the system before the report is generated. (formal)
Pintu dibukakan untuk tetamu sebaik sahaja kenderaan mereka tiba.
The door was opened for the guests as soon as their vehicle arrived.
The omitted actor is still semantically responsible for entering the data or opening the door. Agentlessness is not evidence that -kan has become intransitive.
Annotated formal paragraph
Dokumen permohonan telah dimasukkan ke dalam sistem oleh pegawai bertugas. Salinan digital kemudian dikirimkan kepada setiap ahli panel. Semua rekod akan disimpan dan dibersihkan daripada maklumat pendua selepas proses semakan selesai.
The application documents were entered into the system by the duty officer. Digital copies were then sent to each panel member. All records will be stored and cleared of duplicate information after the review process is complete. (formal)
The paragraph tracks affected institutional entities:
- telah dimasukkan combines completion, passive voice, and caused-motion -kan;
- dikirimkan kepada keeps the sent copies as theme pivot and panel members as recipients;
- akan disimpan dan dibersihkan coordinates two passive predicates under one prospective marker, with -kan in the resultative dibersihkan.
This density is realistic in procedural and administrative writing because documents and records, not individual clerks, organize the workflow.
Annotated colloquial exchange
A: Kunci tu nak letak mana? B: Masukkan dalam sampul ni. A: Meja ni nak bersihkan sekali? B: Ya, bersihkan sebelum pelanggan datang.
A: Where should this key go? B: Put it in this envelope. A: Should I clean this table too? B: Yes, clean it before the customers arrive. (informal)
The understood themes after imperative masukkan and bersihkan are supplied by the dialogue. The actor-voice prefix is absent, but -kan remains because the causative/resultative valency remains. A formal instruction would lexicalize more arguments: Masukkan kunci itu ke dalam sampul ini.
Corpus-realistic distribution
-Kan is frequent across registers, but its voice environment differs. Formal reports favor full meN-...-kan and agentless di-...-kan; instructions favor imperative -kan forms; conversation frequently uses pronominal object voice such as saya masukkan. Benefactive derivatives depend heavily on collocation and speaker intention.
Elementary descriptions sometimes call prefixless conversational forms “shortened active verbs.” That obscures the symmetrical voice ecology: saya masukkan has a licensed actor-before-verb pattern, while dimasukkan selects a passive pivot. Neither is explained by English passive syntax.
Common Mistakes
1. Extracting a goal while deleting its locative relation
❌ Laci yang dia memasukkan kunci itu berkunci.
Incorrect intended goal relative—the relation ‘into’ is missing.
✅ Laci yang dia memasukkan kunci itu ke dalamnya berkunci.
The drawer into which he put that key is locked. (careful)
2. Keeping passive voice for an actor relative
❌ Pekerja yang meja itu dibersihkan sudah pulang.
Incorrect pivot for ‘the worker who cleaned the table’.
✅ Pekerja yang membersihkan meja itu sudah pulang.
The worker who cleaned that table has gone home.
3. Calling prefixless colloquial object voice suffixless
❌ Kunci itu saya masuk dalam sampul.
Incorrect caused-motion valency—object voice drops meN-, not -kan.
✅ Kunci itu saya masukkan ke dalam sampul surat.
I put that key into the envelope.
4. Passivizing an intransitive base without the causative suffix
❌ Kunci itu dimasuk ke dalam laci.
Incorrect standard causative passive—use dimasukkan.
✅ Kunci itu dimasukkan ke dalam laci berkunci.
That key was put into a locked drawer.
5. Treating every -kan word as freely productive
❌ Pintu itu dibukukan untuk tetamu.
Incorrect lexical choice—dibukukan means ‘made into or published as a book,’ not ‘opened for someone.’
✅ Pintu itu dibukakan untuk tetamu yang baru tiba.
The door was opened for the newly arrived guests.
Key Takeaways
-Kan preserves causative, resultative, moved-theme, or benefactive valency across actor, passive, and object voice. Relative clauses require the intended head to match the embedded pivot; goals often retain a locative relation or motivate a recast. Colloquial prefix absence can be fully grammatical while the suffix remains obligatory. Learn lexicalized derivatives and their Malaysian collocations rather than treating -kan as an unrestricted translation of English make.
Now practice Malay
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Malay →Related Topics
- -kan Valency Patterns: Overview and Formation in Malaysian MalayA2 — Form Malaysian Malay -kan verbs and recognize how they add a causer, beneficiary, moved theme, or result-bearing participant.
- -kan Valency Patterns: Subjects, Objects, and Argument Order in Malaysian MalayB2 — Track causers, themes, beneficiaries, goals, and passive pivots in Malaysian Malay clauses whose verb ends in -kan.
- -kan Valency Patterns: Choosing This Construction in Malaysian MalayB2 — Choose -kan when a clause presents caused motion, a result-bearing participant, or an action performed for someone.
- -kan Valency Patterns: Aspect, Modality, and Negation in Malaysian MalayB2 — Place aspect, modal, and negative particles before unchanged active, passive, and object-voice verbs ending in -kan.
- -kan versus -i: Advanced Constraints and Register in Malaysian MalayC2 — Handle extraction, passive and object-voice alternations, lexicalized suffix meanings, omitted agents, and Malaysian formal-colloquial preferences.
- Relative Clauses with yang in Malaysian MalayA2 — Build noun modifiers with yang, identify the unspoken role inside them, and choose an appropriate voice for subject and object relatives.