Most action verbs take their subjects in the agentive / 3rd case. They have objects (known as direct objects in English) in the nominative case (mostly), but some take objects in the objective or beneficial case.
There are two classes of action verbs with subject in 3rd case:
V. agentive-nominative verbs
VI. agentive-objective verbs
Class VI also includes very few that take a direct object in the fourth case (although there are many that take indirect fourth case objects).
In the sentence, He gave medicine to the poor, the direct object is medicine and the indirect object is the poor
A common example of a Class VI verb that takes a direct object in fourth case is ཕན་ (help, aid, benefit). However, it rarely occurs as a free-standing verb and instead generally occurs as part of a phrasal verb ཕན་འདོགས་ (which also means: help, aid, benefit).
Examples: བསྟན་, བྱེད་, འཛིན་
agentive nominative
Subject → Object → ← Verb
སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་ཆོས་བསྟན།
Buddha taught the doctrine.
Examples: ལྟ་, སྤྱོད་, ཁྱབ་
agentive objective
Subject → Object → ← Verb
ཁོས་གཟུགས་ལ་བལྟས།
He looked at forms.
ན་རེ་ following a noun or pronoun marks it as a subject of a clause or sentence that reports discourse or opinion. It thus acts like an agentive case particle, since verbs ending such constructions are typically agentive-nominative verbs.
རྣམས་, དག་ → pluralizing syntactic particles. When these particles follow noun, pronouns, noun phrases, or noun clauses, especially if followed by ནི་, are often the subject of clauses and sentences in which they are found—even when those clauses and sentences end in an agentive verb.
Any of the agentive-nominative verbs can have nominative subjects, especially when the sentence reports discourse or opinion.
Some agentive-nominative verbs are used to show attribution as well. In this construction, they are considered Class VIII (attributive ) verbs. They have an unusual syntax: nominative-locative or locative-nominative and thus can have either nominative subjects or nominative objects.
They are mentioned here because, while they are not thought of as agentive verbs when used for attribution, and thus may not fit into this section, they are often used as agentive verbs in other contexts.
Example attributive verbs include: བྱེད་, འཆད་, གསུང་
One could understand that these verbs have two different meanings or uses that require two different sentence structures. Or, thought another way, by using different case markings, the meaning of the same verb can be understood in two different ways.
They will be considered more in-depth when the Class VIII verbs are discussed.
See Wilson pp. 607, 609-611.
There are certain syntactic particles that act as if they were case marking particles indicating subjects or objects (< todo: other examples?>).
ཅེས་, ཞེས་, ཤེས་ → following a word, phrase, clause, or sentence serve as end-of-quotation markers. They cause the text they follow to serve syntactically as a noun phrase in the nominative case. The nominative phrase is then the object of the agentive-nominative verb.
Examples: ཟེར་, འདོད་
nominative nominative
Subject → Object + SP → ← Verb
མདོ་སྡེ་པ་དག་འདུས་བྱས་རྣམས་སྐད་ཅིག་གིས་འཇིག་པ་ཞེས་འདོད་དོ
Sautrantikas assert, “Compound phenomena are momentarily disintegrating.”