basic clause patterns
response to newly arrived competitors. Cedar trees have begun mak-
ing toxins to protect themselves from being eaten by deer now roam-
ing in their formerly benign habitats. Mussels in New England have
evolved the ability to detect invasive green crabs and produce thicker
shells where the crabs are present.Habitual aspect
The habitual aspect represents states or habits that are characteristic of an
entire period. The English habitual marker used to is generally understood to
indicate a situation that obtained in the past: We used to have five cats; We used
to drive to work every morning. However, these sentences do not strictly entail
that these situations no longer hold. We could add to either of these sentences
the continuation... and in fact we still do.
Note the spelling: it is used to not use to. Used is in its past tense form, as
you would expect for a verb referring to events in the past.
Exercise
Why do we have the tendency to spell used to as use to?
basic clause patterns
The basic clause patterns differ from each other by the type of main verb in
their verb phrases, that is, their predicates. The verb types are differentiated
from each other by the functions and phrases they require to be present or
to be absent in the VP. We resume our use of formal tree diagrams and the
Reed/Kellogg system of functional diagramming.
Basic clause pattern 1: intransitive
The simplest clause pattern corresponds to the functional formula in (78a)
and exemplified in (78b):
(78) a. Basic clause pattern 1 (78) b. Edgar will speak
Subject Verb Head
Formally, this pattern contains an NP with a VP whose head verb is
intransitive. (We abbreviate this verb as Vi.) The clause can contain no ob-
jects or complements. The formal pattern is (79a), whose corresponding tree
diagram is (79b):