To Mike sensei

[Taka]

Any further comments, tdol?

[Casiopea]

Originally Posted by Taka

To me, it seems that your idea:

doesn't really go well with tdol's rule of thumb:

I mean, I think tdol is saying that "excited"= finished \"exciting" = unfinished, and therefore "As M. Jordan came in, the game became excited" is strange; the game was probably still in progress, not finished. That logic was very easy for me to follow--although I'm still kind of wondering if it is true that past participal adjectives have not only a passive feel, but also that of completion always at the same time. But as I see some sort of discrepancy between tdol's and your theory, now I'm in confusion and not sure which suggestion to follow...

Terminology can get us into some pretty deep water. :( 'excited' does not mean 'finished'. First of all, it's a participle: Think 'unfinished', as in not realized as an action. Past participles function as modifiers, not verbs. Given that they do not function as verbs, they are not realized (i.e. they do not take a subject (e.g. an actor) or a thing that's acted upon (i.e. an object). They are unfinished--yet to be created as verbs. They look like verbs but differ from verbs in not having something to which they can pass on their meaning in order to make it to the status of 'finished, created, done, made-it' to the status of a verb.

An excited game
=> 'excited' modifies 'game' as a participle. Participles are verbs (i.e. they look like verbs but they are unfinished so they can't be verbs). 'excited' tells us the state of the game:

The state of the game became excited. (Non-Standard English) :D

However, just because it's non-Standard doesn't mean it's unacceptable (i.e. doesn't convey meaning ~ isn't meaningful). It's meaningful. :D

In order to understand why it is that 'excited' is being used in a Non-standard way, we look at its function and its distribution. We find that 'exicted', even though regulated to modifying animate beings, is now being extended to modify nouns that are associated with animate beings, such as 'conversations' and 'games':

The conversation go excited. (i.e. heated)
The game got excited. (i.e. heated)

We call that a semantic extension (i.e. extending or adding on to the meaning of a word).

Whether or not 'excited' is passive or, for that matter, completed, as is the simple past and the past perfect, we would have to look at the bigger picture (i.e. the verb phrases within which 'excited' participates--and hence where it gets the term), because terms such as passive, simple past and past perfect (ahem, verbs) are associated with terms like complete and finished. Here those terms refer to the act(ion) itself, and not to the making of a grammatical category (i.e. from adjective to verb).

On its own, 'excited' functions as an adjective with verbal-like qualities. That is, because it looks like a verb, we sense it refers to an action and yet we can't find the subject or the object it realizes itself on to, which tells us it's an unfinished verb--not a verb at all. It may feel 'complete (i.e. Because of the -ed ending The game got exited appears to mean, the game was over, but that's not the case. In this case, 'excited' is not part of a verb phrase. It's all by itself, and it's functioning as an adjective with verbal qualities without the act realized.

[Taka]

Casiopea has made her statement, which gives me the urge to get yours, tdol. :)

[Tdol]

Originally Posted by Taka

By the way tdol, is it necessarily true that past participal adjectives have not only a passive feel, but also that of completion at the same time? If so, why? I mean, I thought the "-ed" form of completion and that of the passive was seemingly the same , but essentially different from each other. How does the passive feel, which I think is a basic feel of past partical adjectives, relate to that of completion?

I think if we start from the basic concept of aspect, which is finished\unfinished and try to trace it back to that source, we can get to the heart of the matter, even though other elements are imposed at higher levels. The area of passive and adjective is a grey area where it is often hard to spearate the two. The passive is,IMO, a bit of a red herring- the passive can usually have a progressive aspect, so it doesn't replace or dispense with the completion idea.

[Taka]

Originally Posted by tdol

I think if we start from the basic concept of aspect, which is finished\unfinished and try to trace it back to that source, we can get to the heart of the matter, even though other elements are imposed at higher levels. The area of passive and adjective is a grey area where it is often hard to spearate the two. The passive is,IMO, a bit of a red herring- the passive can usually have a progressive aspect, so it doesn't replace or dispense with the completion idea.

So you mean strictly "noun+be+-ed" is semantically different from "-ed+noun"?

[Tdol]

Sometimes, but now always- it's hard to decide sometimes:
He's excited (probably adjective)
He's excited by (probably verb)
There's no clear border, but gradations and different people will see the same phrase differently.;-0

[Taka]

Originally Posted by tdol

Sometimes, but now always- it's hard to decide sometimes:
He's excited (probably adjective)
He's excited by (probably verb)
There's no clear border, but gradations and different people will see the same phrase differently.;-0

Hmm...OK, let's leave this past participial adjective question open for now. :?

Phraseologically, the main reason why you think "an excited game" or "the game became excited" is strange is, as Mike says, that even though "excited" is a past participial adjective, which has a passive feel, many have a problem attaching an emotion as an attribute of "game".

Another reason, if any, is, as you say, that the past participal adjective "excited" has not only a passive feel, but also that of completion. The game is in a process, and therefore it is unusual for you native speakers to use "excited" as an attribute of "game".

Does that sum it up?

[Francois]

We've wrung the question out, don't we?

FRC

[Taka]

Originally Posted by Francois

We've wrung the question out, don't we?

FRC

You mean "you are wrung out"?

If so, sorry about that.

[Francois]

No, not at all
I meant we've said most of what can be said about the subject.

FRC