A regretful remark about the marines causes some fear (6)
I believe the answer is:
alarms
'causes some fear' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'a regretful remark about the marines' is the wordplay.
'a regretful remark' becomes 'alas' (I've seen this in another clue).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the marines' becomes 'RM' (abbreviation for 'Royal Marines').
'alas' going around 'rm' is 'ALARMS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for alarms that I've seen before include "Clocks that wake sleepers" , "Frightens and startles" , "Frightens, makes afraid" , "Scares with warning devices" , "Alerting devices - burglars?" .)