Bakat Passive in Balinese and Kena Passive in Indonesian: A Comparative Study

International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6194 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 Bakat Passive in Balinese and Kena Passive in Indonesian: A Comparative Study I Nyoman Udayana1, Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati2, I Putu Sutama3, Madya Hiroki Nomoto, Ph.D.4 1,2,3 Udayana University Denpasar Bali Indonesia, 4 Tokyo Univ. of Foreign ABSTRACT: This study investigates the grammatical properties of analytic passive constructions in two languages: the bakat passive in Balinese and the kena passive in Indonesian. Although Indonesian kena passive has received substantial attention in prior work, the Balinese bakat passive remains largely underexamined. This research provides the first detailed description and analysis of bakat passive, addressing a significant gap in Balinese grammatical research. For kena passive, despite the availability of basic descriptions, recent studies of comparable constructions in languages such as Mandarin and Vietnamese underscore the need for a renewed analytical perspective. Incorporating these insights, this study proposes an updated analysis of Indonesian kena passive aligned with the depth and rigor of current cross-linguistic research. The study primarily employs elicitation, involving regular sessions with native speakers to obtain grammaticality judgments, semantic interpretations, and other linguistic data. Additional evidence from Balinese and Indonesian corpora is used to test and refine the proposed hypotheses. The findings show that bakat passive and kena passive function as auxiliary verbs marking noncanonical passive constructions. Both encode “non-intentional” meaning through specific combinations with verbal roots of corresponding lemmas. They can also co-occur with canonical passive markers -a in Balinese and diin Indonesian. These results advance our understanding of passive structure and syntactic organization in natural language. KEYWORDS: Balinese, grammar, linguistics, Indonesian, passive INTRODUCTION ‘Passive’ falls under a grammatical phenomenon known as diathesis. Diathesis is one of the most extensively studied areas in linguistic research on Austronesian languages, including Balinese and Indonesian. However, previous studies on diathesis in these two languages have focused on what is known as synthetic diathesis, where diathesis categories are indicated as part of the verb. For example, Balinese is described as having three distinct diatheses (Artawa (2013); Udayana (2013)): (1) a. Agentive diathesis (actor voice): Tiang ng-odot be. 1 AV-cut meat ‘I cut the meat.’ b. Objective diathesis (object voice): Be-ne godot tiang. meat-DEF OV.cut 1 ‘I cut the meat.’ c. Passive diathesis: -a Ia orahin-a kema teken meme-ne. 3 tell-PAS go.there by mother-POS ‘He was told to go there by his mother.’ The verb is marked with the nasal prefix Nin the active sentence (1a), with the suffix -a in the passive sentence (1c), and appears unmarked (or with zero diathesis marker Ø) in the objective diathesis (1b). These three types of diatheses are also found in Indonesian. The bakat passive in (2) and the kena passive in (3) are classified as analytic passives, where the passive construction is marked by an auxiliary verb (i.e., bakat and kena). International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6195 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 (2) Balinese pasif bakat: Maling-e bakat tangkap-a teken polisi. thief-DEF BAKAT catch-PAS by police ‘The thief got caught by the police.’ (3) Indonesian kena passive: Pencuri itu kena tangkap oleh polisi. ‘The thief got caught by the police.’ These analytic passives have received less attention than their synthetic counterparts. For instance, Artawa (2013) mentions the three diatheses in (1) and the kapassive, but not the pasif bakat. The entry for bakat in the Balinese dictionary Sutjaja (2009) only lists its use as a main verb meaning ‘to obtain; to be caught’, without noting its passive construction. This study therefore addresses this gap by examining Indonesian kena passive, which has been described in grammars (Sutjaja, 2009), although to our knowledge Sneddon et.al. is the only journal article that focuses on it. This study investigates the grammatical properties of both passive constructions, with the following problem formulations. 1. How do these two analytic passives relate to the -a, ka-, and bare passives (in pasif bakat) and the di-, ter-, and bare passives (in kena passive)? 2. What meanings condition or influence the use of pasif bakat and kena passive? MATERIALS AND METHODS Extensive research has been carried out on passive constructions in both Indonesian and Balinese. However, the majority of these studies concentrate on canonical passive patterns, such as the -a and kapassives in Balinese and the dipassive in Indonesian. The following section reviews relevant studies for each language. The kaPassive and the -a Passive in Balinese In cross-linguistic typology, passive constructions are commonly viewed as structures derived from their active counterparts. That is, passive forms emerge through systematic changes in the syntactic configuration and the grammatical roles associated with the active clause. Consider the examples below: (4) a. Dia membeli buku. ‘He/She bought a book.’ Sentence (4b) is ungrammatical because buku is interpreted as new, indefinite information, which cannot appropriately occupy the subject position in a passive structure. In contrast, in (4c), the noun phrase is definite and already established in the discourse, thereby maintaining the referential continuity between the active and passive clauses. The lack of such a referential anchor in (4b) results in its unacceptability. The acceptability of passive alternations is also influenced by the degree of transitivity associated with the verb (Quirk,etal (1985), (1972)). Although verbs such as melihat ‘to see’ and menyaksikan ‘to witness’ both denote perception, menyaksikan is more highly transitive because it implies active engagement and a capacity to report event details. A similar contrast appears between mempunyai and memiliki: memiliki conveys stronger control over an entity, making Rumah itu dimiliki oleh dia more acceptable than Rumah itu dipunyai oleh dia. This aligns with tendencies in English, where the house is owned by him is more natural than the house is had by him, and the noun owner is far more conventional than haver. These distinctions relate closely to volitionality—whether an event is intended or accidental. Non-volitional events tend to involve stative verbs with spontaneous event structures, while intentional actions are typically durative. In Indonesian, this semantic contrast is reflected morphologically through di- (intentional passive) versus ter- (non-intentional passive): (5) a. Sampah itu disapu oleh dia. b. Sampah itu tersapu oleh dia. A comparable pattern is observed in Balinese. The suffix -a marks passives with intentional action, whereas the prefix kadenotes non-intentional passive events (Udayana, (2013) (2025)). According to Udayana, et.al (2025), however, the -a passive derived from third-person pronouns is often perceived as belonging to a lower speech level within the Balinese unggah-ungguh International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6196 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 system. Consequently, the kapassive is frequently employed as a higher-register alternative. Nonetheless, Udayana (2025) does not address the possibility of additional passive forms expressing non-intentional meaning beyond ka-. The terand diPassives in Indonesian Indonesian also possesses other means of encoding non-intentional passives in addition to the terconstruction (Udayana (2002). In their analysis, Udayana (2002) provides a detailed comparison of the diand terpassives, concluding that digenerally marks intentional passive events, while tersignals accidental or non-volitional occurrences. These passives are examined in relation to their discourse properties; for example, the dipassive can be used to convey politeness in specific pragmatic contexts. However, the study does not discuss additional passive forms, such as the kena passive, which also plays an important role in Indonesian grammar. Research on passive constructions in Indonesian and Balinese has been conducted extensively; however, most studies focus on canonical passive forms, such as the -a and kapassives in Balinese and the dipassive in Indonesian. The following review summarizes the literature on each language. The kaPassive and the -a Passive in Balinese In cross-linguistic studies, passive constructions are typically understood as derivatives of active clauses. In other words, passive forms arise through structural and functional transformations from their active counterparts. Consider the following examples: (6) a. Dia mem-beli buku. ‘He/She bought a book.’ b. * Buku di-beli oleh dia. (Unacceptable) c. Buku itu di-beli oleh dia. ‘The book was bought by him/her.’ Sentence (6b) is ungrammatical because the noun buku refers to new, non-definite information, which is unsuitable in subject position in a passive construction. In contrast, in (6c) the noun is definite or discourse-given, preserving the referential link between the active and passive sentences. Thus, in a narrative context, the entity buku in both active and passive clauses refers to the same discourse referent, whereas in (6b) this referential connection fails, rendering the sentence unacceptable. The transformation from active to passive also depends on the verb’s degree of transitivity (Quirk et.al (1972) (1985). For example, the verbs melihat ‘to see’ and menyaksikan ‘to witness’ both denote perception, but menyaksikan has higher transitivity because it implies active involvement and the ability to report event details. A similar contrast exists between mempunyai and memiliki: memiliki conveys stronger control, making Rumah itu dimiliki oleh dia more acceptable than Rumah itu dipunyai oleh dia. This pattern parallels English, where The house is owned by him is more natural than the house is had by him, and the noun owner is more common than haver. The degree of transitivity is related to volitionality, distinguishing intentional from non-intentional passive meanings. Nonintentionality is typically associated with stative or non-action verbs, whose event structures are spontaneous, whereas intentional actions are durational. In Indonesian, this contrast is reflected in the difference between dipassives (intentional) and terpassives (non-intentional): (7) a. Sampah itu disapu oleh dia. b. Sampah itu tersapu oleh dia. A similar phenomenon occurs in Balinese. The suffix -a marks intentional passive actions, whereas the prefix kaindicates non-intentional passive meaning (Udayana (2013) and Udayana et.al (2025). However, according to Udayana et.al (2025), the -a passive derived from third-person pronouns is often considered low-register within the Balinese unggah-ungguh (speech level) system. As a result, the kapassive is frequently used as its substitute in higher registers. Nevertheless, Udayana et.al (2025) does not address whether other passive forms expressing non-intentional meaning exist beyond ka-. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6197 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 The terand diPassives in Indonesian Indonesian also has alternatives for expressing non-intentional passives besides the terpassive (Udayana (2002) In their study, Udayana (2002) provides an extensive discussion of the diand terpassives, concluding that diindicates intentional passive events, while terexpresses non-intentionality. These two passives are analyzed in relation to their discourse functions; for instance, the dipassive can be used for politeness-related pragmatic purposes. However, Udayana (2002) does not examine other passive types, such as the kena passive in Indonesian. Data analysis is conducted continuously, involving organization, categorization, and pattern identification to ensure accurate results. Findings are presented using the informal method, which relies on clear descriptive explanations suited to qualitative research. This study uses a comparative qualitative approach to examine non-intentional passive constructions in Balinese and Indonesian. Since this phenomenon appears in both languages, analyzing only one would not meet the research goals. Nonintentional passives typically arise from specific semantic or syntactic triggers, making cross-linguistic comparison essential. The study draws on secondary sources, folktales, and online materials to capture natural usage. Data were selected based on linguistic relevance, accessibility, and their ability to represent both formal and informal contexts. Elicitation through interviews with native speakers provides additional judgments on grammar and meaning. Balinese data are supplemented by suarasakingbali.com, while Indonesian examples come from the Leipzig Corpora Collection. RESULT AND DISCUSSION Findings are presented clearly and logically, using concise language to enhance readability. This study employs an informal descriptive method, presenting results through sentences and verbal explanations, which is considered more suitable for qualitative analysis than statistical methods. This study addresses two primary questions: 1. How are the two analytic passives related to Balinese -a, ka-, and bare passives (bakat passive) and Indonesian di-, ter-, and bare passives (kena passive)? 2. What semantic factors influence bakat passive and kena passive? The findings can be summarized as follows. Balinese Bakat Passive: Main Verb vs. Auxiliary Verb In Balinese, bakat passive is categorized as an adversative passive, reflecting non-intentional or unplanned actions (Alexiadou, A. (2012). Alexiadou, A. & Schäfer, F (2013) Davies (1995), Nomoto (2021)). While non-canonical in form, it plays a significant role in expressing speaker intent and the event structure of a sentence. The verb bakat, as a lexical root, undergoes nasal assimilation in declarative sentences. The nasal prefix (archiphoneme N) assimilates with the initial segment of the root, producing homorganic forms: Bilabial: N + bayah → mayah (‘to pay’) Alveolar: N + tampah → nampah (‘to slaughter’) Palatal: N + sampatang → nyampatang (‘to sweep’) Vowel-initial: N + amah → ngamah (‘to take’) Exceptions occur when the root begins with a nasal, resulting in clusters (ngnot→ngenot). Declarative sentences illustrate these patterns: Cicing m-(p)akpak tulang Ento → ‘The dog ate the bone’ Nyoman ny-(s)ampatang Lulu Ento → ‘Nyoman swept the trash’ When functioning as a main verb, bakat undergoes the same nasal assimilation. However, in naturally occurring declarative contexts, bakat often acts as an auxiliary verb, marking non-intentionality, similar to Indonesian terpassive and Balinese kapassive: Bakat tuni ny-(s)ambat ng-(g)elah Tunangan uli Buleleng Pasti Ento lakar buin takonang-a ‘(I) unintentionally mentioned having a boyfriend from Buleleng; surely it will be asked again.’ Balinese Canonical Passive: –a Passive and kaPassive –a Passive is the canonical Balinese passive, historically derived from Old Javanese. In Old Javanese, -inindicated intentionality, while kaindicated non-intentionality. Balinese retained -a as a replacement for -in-, derived from the third-person pronoun ia. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6198 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 8a. Active: Ia ny-(j)emak Buku ento → ‘He took the book’ b. Passive: Buku ento jemak-a teken Ia → ‘The book was taken by him’ The suffix -a functions both as a passive marker and as a third-person proclitic. Combining it with the full pronoun yields ungrammaticality, demonstrating its proclitic function. Non-canonical -a marks passive clauses where the patient is foregrounded. Register considerations (high level/low level) affect acceptability: 9a. Buku nika ambil-a antuk Ida → marginally acceptable b. Buku nika ka-ambil antuk Ida → fully acceptable In formal/high-register contexts, kais preferred to express respect, while -a may carry low-register connotations. Semantic Basis of Balinese bakat Passive The auxiliary verb bakat conveys non-intentionality, linking it to kapassive and aligning it conceptually with Indonesian terpassive. When the underlying action is intentional, canonical -a or diforms are used; when non-intentional, bakat, ka-, or terforms indicate the semantic shift. Comparative Insights: Balinese and Indonesian Passives The analysis demonstrates the following generalizations: 1. Both languages distinguish intentional vs. non-intentional actions at the passive level: o Balinese: -a (intentional), ka- / bakat (non-intentional) o Indonesian: di- (intentional), ter- (non-intentional) 2. Auxiliary verbs (bakat, can, etc.) in both languages often signal non-canonical passive constructions associated with unplanned events. 3. Phonological and morphological markers, such as nasal assimilation in Balinese, reflect the verb’s syntactic status as main or auxiliary and influence grammatical acceptability. These findings suggest a cross-linguistic universality in how intentionality and non-intentionality are encoded in passive constructions, while the surface morphology remains language-specific. ka-Passive The kapassive in Balinese, as mentioned above, is a borrowing from Old Javanese Udayana et.al (2025). Similar to the kapassive in Old Javanese, Balinese kapassive expresses unintentional passive or adversative passive. Therefore, a sentence like (10b) can be paraphrased as “The book was accidentally taken by him.” It is known that kapassive is neutral with respect to speech levels. So, kacan be used in both low and high speech registers, as shown in the following examples: 10 a. Ia m-(b)eli buku ento 3 AV-buy book that ‘He/she bought that book’ b. Buku ento ka-beli teken ia Book that PAS-buy by 3 ‘That book was bought by him/her’ 11 a. Ida n-(t)umbas buku nika 3 AV-buy book that ‘He/she bought that book’ b.? Buku ento tumbas-a antuk ida Book that buy-PAS by 3 ‘That book was bought by him/her’ c. Buku ento ka-tumbas antuk ida Book that PAS-buy by 3 ‘That book was bought by him/her’ International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6199 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 Comparing (11b) and (11c), one might argue that the kaform tends to be used in high speech registers. However, this view is easily refuted, because, as mentioned earlier, the kaform is neutral with respect to speech level. The logical consequence of using kain (11c) is that, fundamentally, what distinguishes the -a passive from the kapassive in Balinese is that ka- (as in Javanese) expresses unintentional passive, while -a indicates intentional passive. Therefore, using kain the context of (11b) to form (11c) cancels out the “unintentional” element associated with ka-, positioning it instead as an intentional passive. This is evident in Balinese speakers’ routine use in speech events, as found in literature related to Balinese story collections. 12. Di suba-ne jam 09.00 WITA makejang pelamar ka-kumpulan lan tunden-a ka lantai Dua ‘After 9:00 WITA all applicants were gathered and asked to enter the second floor’ (KP:18) In (12), kapassive is coordinated with -a passive, which can be paraphrased as: “The applicants were intentionally gathered and also intentionally asked to come to the second floor.” This means that kapassive can functionally take the position of intentional passive, which was originally relevant only to unintentional passive. Consequently, this gives rise to what we call “bakat passive,” as discussed in the following subsection. Bakat passive and Polih Passive After presenting canonical -a passive and non-canonical kapassive in Balinese, there is another type of passive called bakat passive (low register) and polih passive (high register). Consider the following examples: 13 a. Cang bakat m-(b)eli baju busan 1 can AV-buy clothes earlier ‘I accidentally bought the clothes earlier’ b. Baju bakat beli cang busan Clothes can OV-buy 1 earlier ‘The clothes were accidentally bought by me’ c.? Baju bakat beli-a teken cang Clothes can buy-PAS by 1 ‘The clothes were accidentally bought by me’ 14. a.? Meme bakat ng-adep jaja ditu Mother can AV-sell snack there ‘Mother accidentally sold the snack there’ b. Jaja bakat adep-a teken meme ditu Snack can buy-PAS by mother there ‘The snack was accidentally sold by mother’ Sentences like (13a) are fully acceptable as declarative active sentences. However, comparing (13a) and (14a) shows asymmetry. Both are declarative, but (13a) is pragmatically smooth, while (14a) seems slightly odd. This is linked to egophoricity, which involves first-person awareness in an action (self-knowledge marking). Balinese has speech levels; for high registers, bakat passive is not suitable, but polih passive is. 15a. Ida polih n-(t)umbas kwaca wau 3 can AV-buy clothes earlier ‘He/she accidentally bought clothes earlier’ b.? Ida bakat n-(t)umbas kwaca wau 3 can AV-buy clothes earlier ‘He/she accidentally bought clothes earlier’ International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6200 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 c.? Kwaca nika polih tumbas-a antuk ida Clothes that can buy-PAS by 3 ‘The clothes were accidentally bought by him/her’ d. Kwaca nika polih ka-tumbas antuk ida Clothes that can PAS-buy by 3 ‘The clothes were accidentally bought by him/her’ Here, –a passive gives the impression of a general, lower-class speaker, whereas changing the marker to kamakes the sentence acceptable for high register. Bakat /Polih Passive Filled with kaAs discussed above, bakat is an auxiliary verb. Unlike English get, which contributes directly to passive formation, Balinese bakat does not inherently link to syntactic passive formation; it primarily conveys unintentionality. Its presence is crucial because in high register, intentional passive (-a) is avoided for politeness, and kareplaces it. Through this linguistic change, the unintentional meaning originally carried by kashifts, and bakat passive emerges as a replacement, as seen in (16). 16 a.? Ia bakat ka-tundik teken Cang 3 BAKAT PAS-touch by 1 ‘He/she was accidentally touched by me’ b. Ia bakat tundik cang 3 BAKAT touch 1 ‘He/she was accidentally touched by me’ Kena Passive Kena passive in Indonesian is a non-canonical passive, differing from the canonical dipassive. Canonical passives are characterized by demotion of the agent, promotion of the patient, and a specific marker. Kena passive shares these features with terpassive: it expresses unintentionality, often adversative. Historically, kena passive is related to Balinese and Javanese kapassive, etymologically derived from kena or kenek. Kena as a Main Verb: kena as a main verb can be seen in the following examples 17a. Ternyata Pak Kusnadi kena dampak buruknya b. Endy mengatakan apabila Lotus dipasarkan, tidak kena sasaran c. Karena kasus Gayus ini, jaksa Cirus kena getahnya d. Wibisono pun kena teguran dan dipaksa mengantar Helena Kena as an Auxiliary Verb: kena as an auxiliary verb can be seen in the following examples 18a. Nanti kalian kena tipu lagi b. Dia kena semprot oleh Keane c. Harimau takut kena tending d. Rumah Marshanda terancam kena sita Comparison between bakat Passive and kena Passive Bakat is suitable in declaratives only for first-person pronouns, whereas kena is unsuitable in active declaratives: 19 a. Cang /*ia bakat m-(b)eli baju ‘I/*he accidentally bought clothes’ b. *Saya/*dia kena mem-beli baju. Both verbs are suited for reportative sentences, characteristic of passive constructions. Both are non-canonical, but bakat conveys unintentionality, and kena also conveys unintentionality with slightly different nuance compared to dipassive. Examples from Leipzig corpus: 20a. Berapa banyak uang di rekeningnya yang kena dibobol. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6201 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 b. Gula ilegal yang kena ditertibkan c. Dia kena dicengkeram oleh jari-jari tangan The nuance is that kena refers to surface-level, unintentional impact, while kena direfers to the core of the target, aligning more with intentional passive. CONCLUSION Based on the study of bakat passive in Balinese and a comparative analysis with kena passive and canonical passives marked by the prefixes diand terin Indonesian, several conclusions can be drawn. Passive sentences, in general, are derived from active sentences. They function as reportative constructions, describing prior events expressed in active sentences. This is evident in interactive contexts, where reporting an event to a co-present interlocutor often sounds awkward if expressed in the passive voice, especially when using an agent-by phrase in the first or second person. In such interactions, the active sentence alone sufficiently conveys the speaker’s or listener’s perspective. Consequently, in these contexts, passive constructions can be rendered in a short form without the agent-by phrase, or they may even be omitted entirely, since the reporter and the reported participant are simultaneously present. Passive constructions in interactive contexts are generally appropriate only when referring to a third party. In this respect, auxiliary verbs in Balinese and Indonesian, such as bakat and kena, function as reportative markers, suitable for expressing noncanonical passive constructions. The Balinese auxiliary bakat carries an inherently ambiguous meaning. Its connotation of unintentionality cannot be interpreted solely at a cognitive level. For example, in declarative sentences uttered by first-person speakers, bakat expresses the speaker’s regret over an action performed, as indicated by the main verb. This demonstrates that bakat functions as a reporting tool, which is a defining feature of passive constructions (canonical), where the agent is demoted and may be omitted, and the patient is promoted to the grammatical subject. Similarly, the Indonesian auxiliary kena follows a comparable interpretive process. Kena indicates that the action affects a target domain, but this domain does not necessarily correspond to the core target. Thus, contexts involving regret (with bakat) or actions failing to reach the primary target (with kena) sequentially illustrate that both auxiliaries form involuntary or unintentional passive constructions. It is important to note that both bakat passive and kena passive mark unintentionality through their specific combination with the verbal root of a lemma. However, each auxiliary can also combine with canonical passives (-a in Balinese, diin Indonesian). In such constructions, the auxiliaries bakat and kena prioritize involuntary or unintentional meaning, while their combination with -a or dishifts the emphasis to intentional or voluntary passive constructions. In sum, the interplay between auxiliary verbs and canonical passive morphology in Balinese and Indonesian reflects a nuanced system in which unintentionality and intentionality can be selectively foregrounded, highlighting the functional versatility of non-canonical passives in these languages. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The researchers express their gratitude to the LPPM (Research and Community Service) Udayana University for funding this research. REFERENCES 1. Alexiadou, Artemis & Doron, Edit. (2012). The syntactic construction of two non-active Voices: passive and middle. Journal of Linguistics 48(1). 1–34. 2. Alexiadou, A. (2012). ‘Noncanonical passives revisited: Parameters of Nonactive Voice’. Linguistics: 50 (6) 1079-1110. DOI: 10.1515/ling-2012-0036 3. Alexiadou, A. & Schäfer, F. (eds). (2013). Non-canonical passives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 4. Artawa, Ketut. 2013. The basic verb construction in Balinese. In Alexander Adelaar (ed.) Voice variation in Austronesian languages of Indonesia. NUSA 54: 5−27. 5. Blust, Robert & Stephen Trussel. 2010. The Austronesian comparative dictionary: Web edition. Updated 21 June 2020. http://www.trussel2.com/acd/ (accessed 2 May 2024). International Journal of Current Science Research and Review ISSN: 2581-8341 Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 DOI: 10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30, Impact Factor: 8.048 IJCSRR @ 2025 www.ijcsrr.org 6202 *Corresponding Author: Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati Volume 08 Issue 12 December 2025 Available at: www.ijcsrr.org Page No. 6194-6202 6. Bruening, Benjamin and Thuan Tran. 2015. The nature of the passive, with an analysis of Vietnamese. Lingua 165: 133−172. 7. Chung, Sandra. (1976). An Object Creating Rule in Bahasa Indonesia in Linguistic Inquiry, 7 (1):41 -87. 8. Davies, William D. 1995. Javanese adversatives, passives, and mapping theory. J. Linguistics 31. 15-51. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226700000554 9. Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka and Alexander D. Smith. 2024. On the syntax of the analytical passive in Kenyah. Paper presented at the first International Symposium on Bornean Linguistics. 10. Hasko, Victoria. 2013. Qualitative Corpus Analysis in the Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Chapell, Carol A (ed). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 11. Huang, James C.-T. 1999. Chinese passives in comparative perspective. Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 29: 423−509. 12. Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2005. A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 13. Legate, J. A. (2012). Subjects in Acehnese and the nature of the passive. Language 88 (3): 495–525 14. Legate, J. A. (2021). Noncanonical Passives: A Typology of Voices in an Impoverished Universal Grammar in Annual Review of Linguistics, 7: 7.1 – 7.20 15. Nomoto, Hiroki and Kartin Abd. Wahab. 2011. Konstruksi kena dalam Bahasa Indonesia: Perbandingan dengan bahasa Melayu. Linguistik Indonesia 29(2): 111−131 16. Nomoto, Hiroki and Kartini Abd. Wahab. 2012. Kena adversative passives in Malay, funny control, and covert voice alternation. Oceanic Linguistics 51(2): 360−386. 17. Nomoto, Hiroki. 2024. Bunsekitekijudoubun no ruikei nikansuru shiron: Tounanajia no gengo o chuushin ni [A preliminary analysis of the typology of analytical passives: With a focus on Southeast Asian languages]. Paper presented at the 169th Meeting of the 18. Nomoto, Hiroki. 2018. The development of the English-type passive in Balinese in Wacana, 19 (1): 149-167. 19. Nomoto, Hiroki (unpublished). 2021. Overlooked bare voice constructions in Westren Austronesian in NUSA, 71: 1-18. 20. Patrianto, Hero and Victoria Chen. To appear. Rethinking Indonesian-type passives: Lessons from Javanese. Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 53). Amherst, MA: GSLA.Linguistic Society of Japan (LSJ). 21. Potts, Christopher. 2005. The Logic of conventional implicatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press 22. Quirk, Randolph, Sydney Greenbaum, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman. 23. Quirk, Randolph, Sydney Greenbaum, and Jan Svartvik. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English Essex: Longman 24. Reed, L. A. (2011). Get-pasives in The Linguistic Review (28): 41-78. DOI:10.1515/tlir.2011.022 25. Sneddon, James Neil, Alexander K. Adelaar, Dwi N. Djenar and Michael Ewing. 2010. Indonesian: A comprehensive grammar. 2nd edn. London: Routledge. 26. Sudaryanto. 2015. Metode dan Aneka Teknik Analisis Bahasa. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma University Press. 27. Sutjaja, I Gusti Made. 2009. Tuttle concise Balinese dictionary. Tokyo: TUTTLE Publishing. 28. Udayana, I Nyoman. 2002. The Indonesian di –passive and discourse context. Journal of Language Teaching and Research. 13 (6) 1304-1312. 29. Udayana, I Nyoman. 2013. Voice and Reflexives in Balinese. University of Texas Ph.D. Dissertation 30. Udayana, I Nyoman. 2020. Nasalization in Balinese Verbs. Aksara, 32 (2): 339 – 348. DOI: 10.29255/Aksara.V32ii1.643.339-348 31. Udayana, I Nyoman, Gede Primahadi Wijaya Rajeg, and Ida Ayu Made Puspani. 2025. The (non)canonical status of the kapassive in Balinese in Linguistics Vanguard. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2023-0122 Cite this Article: Udayana, I.N., Indrawati, N.L.K.M., Sutama, I.P., Nomoto, M.H. (2025). Bakat Passive in Balinese and Kena Passive in Indonesian: A Comparative Study. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review, 8(12), pp. 61946202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47191/ijcsrr/V8-i12-30