ke-...-an Experiencer Constructions: Advanced Constraints and Register in Malaysian Malay | Malay Grammar

Advanced ke-...-an experiencer syntax sits at the intersection of derivation, lexical valency, and information structure. The affected participant is typically the clause pivot, so it relativizes easily; a following lost theme or arriving stimulus does not automatically enjoy the same access. The same surface word can also be a noun or predicate, and corpus frequency differs radically across families: kehilangan is everyday, kedinginan is descriptive, and experiencer kedatangan is restricted compared with the extremely common arrival noun.

This page covers relative clauses, extraction limits, agentless uses, lexical exceptions, frequency, and formal-colloquial alternation. It excludes the other four pages' formation, basic arguments, discourse decision guide, and particle system. Review Malay object relatives for the general pivot constraint.

Experiencer subject relatives

Because the experiencer is the subject/pivot, it can head a yang relative without changing the predicate or repeating a pronoun.

Pendaki yang kedinginan itu dibawa ke pusat rawatan sementara.

The chilled hiker was taken to the temporary treatment centre.

Pelajar yang kehilangan dompet itu meminta bantuan pengawal keselamatan.

The student who lost a wallet asked the security guard for help.

Keluarga yang kedatangan tetamu pada lewat malam itu menyediakan bilik tambahan.

The family that received late-night visitors prepared an extra room. (formal/literary)

The relative structures are pendaki [yang _ kedinginan], pelajar [yang _ kehilangan dompet], and keluarga [yang _ kedatangan tetamu]. Adding dia after yang wrongly fills an already relativized subject position in the neutral standard pattern.

❌ Pelajar yang dia kehilangan dompet itu sedang menunggu.

Incorrect neutral subject relative—the experiencer gap must not be repeated with dia.

✅ Pelajar yang kehilangan dompet itu sedang menunggu di pondok pengawal.

The student who lost a wallet is waiting at the guardhouse.

💡

Experiencer morphology does not block subject relativization. What matters is the pivot: the chilled person, deprived person, or affected host is already the participant selected as subject.

Lost-theme extraction requires restructuring

The theme after kehilangan is not promoted by an ordinary di- passive because dikehilangan is not an established passive counterpart. A standard relative headed by the lost wallet therefore uses another strategy.

❌ Inilah dompet yang dia kehilangan di terminal semalam.

Nonstandard neutral object extraction—the active experiencer remains overt while the theme is gapped.

✅ Inilah dompetnya yang hilang di terminal semalam.

This is her wallet that went missing at the terminal yesterday.

The correction changes to theme-centered hilang and retains possession with -nya. If theft is established, a genuine passive is available:

Inilah dompet yang dicuri daripada pelancong itu di terminal semalam.

This is the wallet that was stolen from the tourist at the terminal yesterday.

That version adds a theft event absent from simple kehilangan. Syntax cannot be repaired by changing truth conditions carelessly.

Conversational left-dislocation can retain a resumptive object:

Dompet merah itu, dia kehilangannya masa turun dari bas.

That red wallet—she lost it while getting off the bus. (informal left-dislocation)

This construction contains both detached dompet merah itu and attached -nya. It is not the same as a restrictive object relative and is too conversational for tightly edited formal prose.

Arriving-stimulus extraction also changes frame

In marked kami kedatangan tamu, the arriving guest is not extracted through a simple active relative with an overt host.

❌ Tamu yang kami kedatangan malam tadi berasal dari Brunei.

Incorrect neutral extraction—the arriving stimulus is not a regular active object of kami kedatangan.

✅ Tetamu yang datang ke rumah kami malam tadi berasal dari Brunei.

The guests who came to our house last night were from Brunei.

The corrected clause makes tetamu the subject of datang. If the host's reception is central, use a true transitive predicate and passive/object-relative strategy where appropriate: tetamu yang kami terima malam tadi “the guests whom we received last night.”

The choice between tamu and tetamu is not singular versus plural; both can refer to one or more guests. Tetamu is the unmarked contemporary choice in many Malaysian hosting contexts, while tamu remains dictionary-standard and occurs in set compounds and particular styles.

Noun–predicate ambiguity

Kehilangan, kedinginan, and kedatangan can head noun phrases. Their syntactic environment, not spelling alone, identifies the category.

Predicate use	Noun use
Dia kehilangan dompet.	Kehilangan dompet itu dilaporkan.
Saya kedinginan.	Kedinginan malam itu menusuk tulang.
Kami kedatangan tetamu.	Kedatangan tetamu itu disambut.

Kehilangan dokumen asal tersebut sedang disiasat oleh pihak pengurusan.

The loss of the original document is being investigated by management. (formal noun use)

Kedinginan udara di puncak itu semakin terasa selepas matahari terbenam.

The coldness of the air at the summit became increasingly noticeable after sunset. (descriptive noun use)

Kedatangan tetamu kehormat disambut dengan persembahan kebudayaan.

The arrival of the guest of honour was welcomed with a cultural performance. (formal noun use)

In all three noun examples, the ke-...-an phrase itself can be passive subject. That outer passive does not turn the internal nominalization into an experiencer predicate.

Agentless affected events

Elementary descriptions often force every event into “someone did something to someone.” These constructions show why that is inadequate. Saya kedinginan and dia kehilangan dompet do not require an intentional agent. A cause may exist, but the grammar need not encode it as actor.

Tiga orang kanak-kanak kedinginan selepas bot mereka dimasuki air.

Three children were chilled after water entered their boat.

Beberapa keluarga kehilangan tempat tinggal akibat kebakaran tersebut.

Several families lost their homes because of the fire. (formal/reporting)

The causal phrases selepas... and akibat... explain circumstances without creating an oleh-agent. English translations may use were chilled or lost, but Malay has not selected a di- passive in either sentence.

An omitted object is possible with kehilangan when context supplies it:

Saya pernah kehilangan kad akses, dan minggu ini rakan saya pula yang kehilangan.

I have lost an access card before, and this week it was my friend's turn to lose one.

The understood theme comes from the first clause. This is ellipsis, not an agentless passive.

💡

A clause without an agent is not automatically passive. Diagnose di- passive from its morphology and patient pivot; diagnose an experiencer construction from its lexical ke-...-an predicate and affected subject.

Lexical exceptions and blocked generalizations

The pattern is not freely productive. Malaysian kehilangan predicates loss, and kehujanan/kesejukan/kedinginan can predicate adverse exposure. Other transparent-looking forms may be nouns only, may have a narrowly lexicalized predicate use, or may be much more prominent in another regional standard.

For example, Malaysian kebakaran normally names a fire or conflagration. Kamus Dewan also records a predicative sense equivalent to terbakar, so rumah itu kebakaran should not be dismissed as nonexistent; it is nevertheless regionally marked and strongly associated with Indonesian usage, while neutral contemporary Malaysian ordinarily chooses rumah itu terbakar. Conversely, kematian genuinely has a Malaysian affected-experiencer sense: Dia kematian isteri means that he suffered the death of his wife. That dictionary-attested frame is restricted and can sound formal or old-fashioned; isterinya meninggal dunia or dia kehilangan isteri is often clearer, depending on the intended perspective.

⚠️ Rumah jiran kami kebakaran pada tengah malam.

Dictionary-listed but regionally marked; this is not the neutral contemporary Malaysian default.

✅ Rumah jiran kami terbakar pada tengah malam akibat litar pintas.

Our neighbour's house caught fire at midnight because of a short circuit.

Dia kematian isteri ketika masih muda.

He suffered the loss of his wife when he was still young. (dictionary-attested; formal/old-fashioned)

Dictionary membership also does not guarantee equal syntactic behavior. Learn each word's frame, not just the circumfix.

Corpus-realistic frequency and register

Frame	Typical Malaysian distribution	Frequent alternative
dia kehilangan dompet	very common, all registers	dompetnya hilang when theme is central
saya kedinginan	descriptive, formal, literary	saya kesejukan / saya sangat sejuk
kami kedatangan tamu/tetamu	dictionary-supported but restricted/marked	kami menerima tetamu / tetamu datang
kedatangan tetamu	very common noun phrase, formal/neutral	ketibaan tetamu

The major contrast is between lexical standardness and discourse frequency. Kedinginan and predicate kedatangan are not “wrong” because conversation often chooses something else. Conversely, a learner should not promote a rare literary frame as the universal Malaysian default.

Annotated formal paragraph

Sebuah keluarga di pusat pemindahan dilaporkan kedinginan; salah seorang anggotanya kehilangan dompet ketika mereka kedatangan tetamu yang menawarkan bantuan, dan kehilangan itu kemudiannya dicatat dalam laporan harian.

A family at the evacuation centre was reported to be suffering from the cold; one family member lost a wallet when they received visitors offering help, and the loss was subsequently recorded in the daily report. (formal report)

The paragraph illustrates several layers:

sebuah keluarga ... kedinginan has an experiencer subject, not a passive patient;
salah seorang anggotanya kehilangan dompet adds a direct lost-theme object;
marked mereka kedatangan tetamu presents the family as affected host;
tetamu yang menawarkan bantuan is a subject relative within that frame;
kehilangan itu is now an anaphoric noun meaning “that loss” and becomes the subject of passive dicatat.

Colloquial exchange

“Sejuknya! Aku dah menggigil. Zaki pula hilang dompet, lepas tu ada tetamu datang nak tolong.” “Nasib baik mereka sampai awal.”

‘It's freezing! I'm already shivering. Then Zaki lost his wallet, and after that some visitors came to help.’ ‘Luckily they arrived early.’ (informal Malaysian dialogue)

The conversation replaces saya kedinginan with an exclamation and menggigil, uses colloquial aku, dah, and hilang dompet, and replaces kami kedatangan tamu with existential ada tetamu datang. These are constructional alternations, not merely affix deletion.

Common Mistakes

1. Extracting a theme without changing the pivot

❌ Dompet yang dia kehilangan itu mengandungi kad bank.

Nonstandard neutral object relative—the experiencer remains overt while the theme is gapped.

✅ Dompetnya yang hilang itu mengandungi dua kad bank.

Her wallet that went missing contained two bank cards.

2. Fabricating a passive form

❌ Dompet itu dikehilangan oleh pelancong tersebut.

Incorrect—predicate kehilangan does not form this di- passive.

✅ Pelancong tersebut kehilangan dompet itu semasa beratur.

The tourist lost that wallet while queuing.

3. Calling marked syntax automatically nonstandard

❌ “Kami kedatangan tamu” mesti salah kerana bahasa Inggeris tidak mempunyai bentuk yang sama.

Incorrect reasoning—Malaysian grammaticality is not determined by English syntax.

✅ “Kami kedatangan tamu” ialah pola yang tercatat dalam kamus tetapi bertanda, manakala “kami menerima tetamu” lebih neutral dalam perbualan.

Kami kedatangan tamu is a dictionary-recorded but marked pattern, while kami menerima tetamu is more neutral in conversation.

4. Assuming a dictionary-listed frame is always the neutral default

⚠️ Rumah itu kebakaran malam tadi.

Dictionary-listed but regionally marked; neutral contemporary Malaysian normally uses terbakar here.

✅ Rumah itu terbakar akibat kerosakan pada pendawaian elektrik.

The house caught fire because of faulty electrical wiring.

5. Mixing registers mechanically

⚠️ Aku kedinginan dan kami kedatangan tamu, lepas tu semua orang panik gila.

Grammatical pieces, but the literary predicates clash with the highly colloquial frame.

✅ Aku kesejukan, lepas tu tetamu datang dan semua orang terus panik.

I was freezing, then guests arrived and everyone immediately panicked. (informal)

Key Takeaways

Experiencer subjects relativize directly, but lost themes and arriving stimuli usually require hilang, datang, a resumptive left-dislocation, or another established predicate. Ke-...-an forms can be nouns or predicates, and absence of an agent does not itself make them passive. Corpus-realistic Malaysian uses kehilangan freely, reserves kedinginan for more descriptive styles, and treats experiencer kedatangan as a marked option beside neutral menerima tetamu or tetamu datang.

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