A Corpus-based Study Of English Verb Patterns In Marine Engineering English

Verb pattern is one of the most frequently used patterns in English. On the basis of Marine Engineering English corpus (MEE) and with the help of numeric statistical calculation and computer programs, this paper investigates the frequency of simple verb patterns, complex verb patterns, verb patterns with it as subject and verb patterns with there as subject in MEE.The Result of this research indicates that there are indeed significant differences between the use of these four verb patterns. Simple verb patterns are used frequently than complex verb patterns. And both simple verb patterns and complex verb patterns are used far more frequently than verb patterns with it as subject and verb patterns with there as subject. In simple verb patterns, pattern V/V(Aux/Modal/PHR-MODAL)+n occurs most frequently. In complex verb patterns, pattern V/V(Aux/Modal)+n+adv/prep occurs most frequently. In verb patterns with it as subject and verb patterns with there as subject, simple present tense is used more frequently than simple past tense. And the negative pattern is rarely used. Besides, auxiliary and modal verbs have a high frequency in all verb patterns of MEE. Most subjects are followed by an auxiliary or a modal verb. High frequency auxiliaries include is, be, are and high frequency modal verbs include should, can, may and high frequency full verbs are used, made, provided, required and so on. The reason for the above phenomenon is mainly because MEE belongs to English for science and technology and it focuses on description.Thus, in the future teaching process, the teachers should teach students to distinguish sentence structure. And the students should also learn to grasp those frequently-occurred verb patterns so as to enhance their reading and writing capability.