Expressing the Agent: tarafından

A Turkish passive usually says nothing about who did the action — that is the whole point of using it. When you do want to name the agent, the standard tool is the postposition tarafından ("by"). But here is the headline you should internalise before anything else: Turkish names the agent of a passive far less often than English does. The default Turkish passive is agentless, and bolting tarafından onto every passive the way English bolts on "by" is one of the clearest tells of an English speaker writing Turkish. This page shows you how tarafından is built, when it is genuinely used, and the ablative alternative for non-human causes.

What tarafından actually is

Tarafından is not an indivisible word. It is the noun taraf ("side") carrying a third-person possessive suffix -ı and the ablative case -ndan — literally "from the side of". So Ali tarafından is "from Ali's side", i.e. "on Ali's part" → "by Ali". Seeing the internal structure matters, because when the agent is a pronoun, the possessive shifts to match it, exactly as in any possessed noun.

Note that senin tarafından ("by you") and onun tarafından ("by him/her") happen to look identical to the bare X tarafından of a third-person noun — the -ı possessive and the second-person form coincide. The agent noun itself stays in the nominative (no case ending): it is Ali tarafından, never Ali'den tarafından.

Why agentful passives are rare

In English, the passive with "by" is a workhorse: "The window was broken by the kids", "Dinner was cooked by Sam." Turkish handles most of those situations with a plain active sentence, because Turkish word order and the fact that subjects can be dropped already let you background information without going passive. If you know who did it, you usually just say it actively.

The Turkish passive comes into its own precisely when the agent is unknown, irrelevant, generic, or deliberately suppressed — which is why an agentless passive is the unmarked case. Reaching for tarafından tells the reader the agent is being singled out for a reason: it is identifiable, it is important, and the construction is formal.

In both of these, an English speaker might be tempted toward a passive with "by", but the natural Turkish is simply active. Use tarafından when you really do mean to formally attribute the action — not as a reflex.

Where tarafından genuinely belongs: formal and written register

Tarafından lives in (formal) and (written) register — official notices, contracts, academic prose, and journalism. It is exactly the construction you meet in a museum caption, a legal clause, or a news report.

Notice the slot: the tarafından phrase sits immediately before the verb, the most emphatic preverbal position in Turkish. That placement is part of what makes it feel deliberate and formal.

The -CA alternative for institutions

When the agent is an official body, formal and journalistic Turkish often prefers the suffix -CA (the agentive/adverbial -ca/-ce/-ça/-çe) over tarafından. It is tighter and very characteristic of administrative and journalistic style.

Cumhurbaşkanınca = cumhurbaşkanı + -n- (buffer) + -ca. This -CA route is (formal/journalistic) and usually reserved for institutions, not individuals — you would not normally say Ali'ce yazıldı.

The ablative for non-human causes and instruments

When the "by" of English is really a cause, force, or instrument rather than a deliberate human agent, Turkish does not use tarafından. It uses the bare ablative case -dan/-den on the cause. This is a separate construction, and confusing the two is a common error.

Here rüzgârdan, kardan, yaştan answer "because of what?" — wind, snow, tears are forces, not willful agents, so they take the ablative of cause, never tarafından. Reserve tarafından for entities that can decide to act (people, institutions, animals acting purposefully).

Building an agentful passive step by step

1. Start active: Komisyon raporu inceledi. ("The commission examined the report.")
2. Make the object the subject and passivise the verb: Rapor incelendi. ("The report was examined.")
3. Add the agent only if formally warranted, right before the verb: Rapor, komisyon tarafından incelendi.

Common mistakes

For an ordinary, known doer in everyday speech, use the active voice. Tarafından here sounds like a press release about breakfast.

Non-human causes take the ablative of cause (rüzgârdan), never tarafından.

Do not add the ablative to the agent itself; the ablative is already inside tarafından. The agent is bare: Ali tarafından.

With a pronoun, taraf takes the possessive that matches: benim tarafımdan, bizim tarafımızdan. Better still, just say it actively: Bu kitabı ben okudum.

In casual narration the active voice is what a native speaker uses; the agentful passive belongs to written or formal register.

Key takeaways

• tarafından = taraf
  • possessive + ablative, "from the side of" → "by". The agent noun stays nominative: Ali tarafından.
• With a pronoun agent the possessive shifts: benim tarafımdan, bizim tarafımızdan.
• Agentful passives are rare in Turkish and feel (formal)/(written) — most "by" sentences become plain active sentences.
• For institutions, formal and journalistic Turkish often prefers -CA: Cumhurbaşkanınca, bakanlıkça.
• For non-human causes and forces, use the bare ablative of cause, not tarafından: rüzgârdan yıkıldı, kardan kapandı.
• Overusing "by" is a hallmark of English transfer; let the agentless passive be your default.