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The Third Case – Agentive

བྱེད་པ་པོ་དང་། བྱ་བ་གཉིས་སུ་འབྱེད་ཅིང་། བྱ་བ་དེའི་བྱེད་པ་པོ་སུ་ཡིན་ཉེ་བར་སྟོན་པའི་རྐྱེན།
Meaning: A particle differentiating between the agent and action; indicating who the agent of that action is.

In general, the བྱེད་སྒྲ། will be affixed to any part of speech and is used to mark three things:

  1. The Agent (བྱེད་པ་པོ།)
  2. The Secondary Agent or Instrument (བྱེད་པ་ཙམ། / ལག་ཆ།)
  3. The Reason (རྒྱུ་མཚན།)

In the first two cases, it will necessarily be associated with a verb in the sentence.
For a discussion on what these two mean, see: Types of Agent.

It is possible to have multiple བྱེད་སྒྲ། marking different things in a sentence, for example:

The བྱེད་སྒྲ། is never affixed directly to a verb, it must be nominalised first. As such, it should not to be confused with the imperative form of the verb བགྱིད་པ། (i.e. གྱིས།), which will sometimes be affixed to verbs.

There are instances where the བྱེད་སྒྲ། is directly affixed to a verb and as such, like the Ladons and འབྲེལ་སྒྲ།, will be used to indicate the meaning of the Emphasis-Conjunction Particles (རྒྱན་སྡུད།), but this is an incorrect usage of the བྱེད་སྒྲ།.

The two Agentive Third Cases are usually affixed to nouns, whereas the Reason Third Case is never affixed to nouns. Moreover, when the Reason Third Case is affixed to verbs, auxiliaries, particles, or adjectives they must be nominalised (as in the above example). As a result, ཀྱིས། གིས། གྱིས། are never used as the Reason Third Case marker.

Verbs where agent and object are different (ཐ་དད་པ།) will necessarily have either a བྱེད་པ་ཙམ།, a བྱེད་པ་པོ།, or both (explicitly or implicitly), which is marked with the Third Case:

Verbs where agent and object are not different (ཐ་མི་དད་པ།) will generally not have a བྱེད་པ་པོ། marked with the Third Case (there are exception, discussed below) but will mark their བྱེད་པ་ཙམ། :

As such, this case covers a variety of usages in English, such as “by”, “with”, “of”, and so forth.

Some verbs where agent and object are not different (ཐ་མི་དད་པ།), such as “to see” (མཐོང་བ།), will mark an agent with a Third Case. However, this is usually done for clarity and to avoid having two nouns in the First Case next to each other; for example:

This will likely be understood as above but could technically mean “The cat saw Tashi.” As such, marking Tashi with the Third Case clarifies who saw whom. Despite being marked with a Third Case, strictly speaking, Tashi would not be referred to as the མཐོང་བ་པོ། since that has the sense of volition, which would not apply here.

On the other hand, some verbs where agent and object are not different (ཐ་མི་དད་པ།) will not mark their agent with a Third Case, despite having volition. This is mainly the case with volitional verbs of motion, for example:

Here, there is an overlap between the འགྲོ་བ་པོ། and འགྲོ་བྱ། (See: Part of speech referents), i.e. Tashi is technically both the goer and that which will go. As such, although Tashi could be referred to as the འགྲོ་བ་པོ། (he is the agent of going and it is a volitional verb), he would be more strongly considered to be the འགྲོ་བྱ། and as such is marked in the First Case.

Some usages of the Third Case do not clearly indicate one of the three above meanings:

Some will explain this as being a perfectly legitimate usage marking the Secondary Agent / Instrument. This especially seems to be the case for verbs that relate to possession and absences, e.g. “Someone is made rich by having treasure.” and so forth.
On the other hand, others will consider it a non-case usage that means “by way of” གྱི་སྒོ་ནས། or “on the basis of” གྱི་ཐོག་ནས།.
All agree there is no clear explanation of this usage or why in some cases their opposites are not used, as is the case with the latter two examples (i.e. you would never say བསམ་གྱིས་ཁྱབ། for “conceivable”).

Up a level: The eight cases