Semantics of Used to
For my first qualifying paper, I'm looking at the formal decomposition of the `past habitual' used to. I am arguing that there are two key operators that are central to the decomposition of used to, which, in turn, correspond to the two semantic components of 'habitual' and `past': 1) an imperfective operator, which is able to capture both habitual (e.g. John used to go swimming) and stative readings (e.g. John used to be intelligent), as well as a retrospective aspectual operator, which gives rise to the past temporal reference property of used to. My motivation for arguing in favor of an aspectual operator to account for the past temporal reference property (rather than tense) is because, unlike the simple past form, used to always gives rise to backshifted shifted readings. For instance, in Sequence of Tense (SoT) examples---which famously allow both a simultaneous and backshifted reading when both the matrix and embedded tense are past (1)---used to only allows the backshifted reading (2).Â
(1) Jeff said that Allegra was annoying (backshifted-- Jeff: Allegra was annoying; simultaneous-- Jeff: Allegra is annoying)
(2) Jeff said that Allegra used to be annoying (backshifted-- Jeff: Allegra was annoying; #simultaneous-- Jeff: Allegra is annoying)