Make me depressed/depress me
1. These thoughts make me depressed.
2. These thoughts depress me.
Could you give your opinon on my analysis of the differece in meaning between the two sentences?
Analysis on 1
1 conveys the meaning that "these thoughts", as they are, do not directly perform the act of depressing "me", but something about/of "these thoughts" directly peforms the act of depressing "me".
Analysis on 2
2 conveys the meaning that "these thoughts", as it is, directly perfrom the act of depressing "me".
So, to sum up, I think that according to context, if "these thoughts", as a whole, directly perform the act of depressing "me", only option 2 is the correct one to say, strictly speaking, but if "these thoughts" only indrectly affect "me", only 1 is the corect one to say.
In this way, It seems like I could feel why "make someone offended" isn't used much.
As for the verb "offend", since it's normal for someone to perform the act of offending someone directly, saying "make someone offended" doesn't seem to be often used.
On the other hand, 'excite" is used in both forms "excite someone" and "make someone excited".
It would be because it does make sense to think either someone/something directly performs the act of exciting someone or indirectly performs the act of exciting someone.
What do you think? Am I correctly thinking?
Top answer
Psych Verbs (Psychological Verbs) express a mental state or event. Some examples are please, scare, frighten, amuse, bore, astonish, surprise, terrify, thrill . When such verbs take a direct object which represents the experiencer of this mental situation, the construction is implicitly causative.
- Psych Verbs (Psychological Verbs) express a mental state or event.
- Some examples are please, scare, frighten, amuse, bore, astonish, surprise, terrify, thrill .
- When such verbs take a direct object which represents the experiencer of this mental situation, the construction is implicitly causative.
- This movie bores me.
- = This movie makes me (feel) bored.
Get the Weekly English Kit 📬
New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.
Psych Verbs (Psychological Verbs) express a mental state or event. Some examples are please, scare, frighten, amuse, bore, astonish, surprise, terrify, thrill. When such verbs take a direct object which represents the experiencer of this mental situation, the construction is implicitly causative.
This movie bores me. = This movie makes me (feel) bored.
Ghosts fri
0
Related Questions