On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 9:48 AM, Karl Hagen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Craig,

I think the examples you have flagged as passive are only ambiguously so. That is, in this case you can read "excited" as either a passive participle or as a past-participial adjective and there's no definitive way to distinguish them.

Notice that you can substitute "become" in for "am" in these sentences, meaning that adjectival "excited" can definitely co-occur with the by-phrase:

I became excited by your presence.
I became excited by being near you.

Karl

On 2/27/2013 5:47 AM, Hancock, Craig G wrote:

    I would consider a sentence with “be” plus “excited” passive if it includes explicit agency.

    “I am excited by your presence.” Passive

    “I am excited by being near you.” Passive

    “I am excited to be near you.” Excited as stative adjective. (More the reasons for the state of excitement than the cause.)

     Some of the dictionaries I looked at give “arouse” or “rouse” as synonym, but I think “arouse” seems to hold onto its verb status a little more.

    “I am aroused by your presence.” (Very natural)

   “I am aroused to be near you.” (seems awkward to me.)

    It’s interesting that “excite” has a technical sense in physics that applies to non-sentient entities. If we “excite” something, we increase its chemical activity. For the most part, though, the infinitive can’t be direct object complement because it doesn’t fit either of those cognitive categories. We can excite a person or thing (in the increased activity sense), but I can’t think of ways in which the receiver of the excitement might be expressed in infinitive form.

Craig