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3. Umlaut Plural
11 teeth 10
10.6 13 women
9 9.5
15 men 10
10.6 25 men
10 10.6
27 teeth 9
9.5 30 women
12 12.7
34 geese 17
18 48 geese
17 18
Total 8 items
94 100
Average 94 errors8 items
= 11.75 69.1 students 4.
Irregular plural from Latin and
Greek 31 stimuli
17 34
38 crises 17
34 39 bacteria
16 32
Total 3 items
50 100
Average 50 errors3 items
= 16.6 97.6 From the first part of the table, which is the group of identical singular and
nouns, as many as 12 to 13 students or 73.5 made the errors for each number of the item. For the common irregular nouns, there are 8 or 9 students or 51.7
committed the errors for each item. On this part, the noun letters change significantly compared with other irregular ones. Many of them do not know that
the singular noun words child, person, and mouse change into children, people, and mice, respectively.
The next group of the irregular nouns is the umlaut ones, i.e. the noun words that only change their vowels to make them plural. The students still failed
in forming the nouns tooth, man, woman, and goose into their plurals correctly as in average, 11 or 12 students or 69.1 did the errors for each item.
Unfortunately, all of them failed to form the noun goose into geese that appeared
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twice on the test. The last part of this irregular nouns area is nouns that come from Latin or Greek. Again, they nearly failed on these items as only 1 student who was
successful in answering the item of bacterium that changes into bacteria, while the entire of them failed in forming the singular nouns stimulus and crisis. On this
part of nouns area from Latin and Greek, 97.6 of the students showed their lack of understanding as well as they do not have adequate knowledge to form the
correct irregular nouns.
D. Data Interpretation
Based on the data analysis, the writer would like to give the interpretation of data.
From the classification of the students‟ errors on the items of irregular plural nouns formation, the result shows that there are two types of errors
committed by the students, i.e. word order with 217 errors of 19 items or 67 in average, and add-a-word with 50 errors of 4 items or 73.5 in average. It can
be seen that the percentage of word order is slightly below that of add-a-word. 73.5 of the students did the errors of asserting the unnecessary element of the
noun words, while 67 of them did the errors that they were considered less of understanding of the appropriate irregular nouns form which is classified into the
errors of word order. The students‟ errors are also classified according to their causes of errors
that they made on the test. Here, the errors belong to the causes of 1 inter- lingual transfer and 2 context of learning. The inter-lingual transfer here
includes the errors of word order classification which is mentioned on the previous paragraph. The number of errors caused by the factor of inter-lingual
transfer reaches 67.2, which is the same with 11 or 12 students in average that did the errors on each item. For the context of learning which comprises the
students‟ errors of add-a-word addition, the percentage of errors is 73.5, slightly more than the previous cause of errors inter-lingual transfer. Here, 12 or
13 students committed the errors in average for each item.
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After the writer explains the errors based on their classification and their causes, he turns to interpret the errors of the irregular nouns according their plural
areas see table 4.9. Here, the areas encompass 1 the nouns with identical plural and singular forms; 2 the common irregular nouns; 3 the umlaut plurals; and
4 irregular nouns from Latin and Greek. The percentage that is shown reflects the number of errors committed for each item and thus becomes the comparison in
errors‟ proportion among the items of the same nouns area. Of the four irregular noun areas, it looks that all of which numbers of errors are significantly above
50, with the most errors level made is on the area of irregular nouns from Latin and Greek, i.e. 97.6, or nearly the entire students committed the errors here. The
least number of errors made is on the area of common irregular nouns, i.e. the word children with 6 errors, followed by the word people with 7 errors, while the
most number of errors lie on the noun words geese, stimuli, and crises from the areas of umlaut and irregular nouns from Latin and Greek, where the entire
students proved their wrong answers on the plural formation of the irregular ones.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Based on the analysis of data in the previous chapter, the writer would like to conclude the findings related with the errors that the students committed on the
test items of the irregular plural nouns formation. The s
tudents‟ errors on the result of this research are classified into the word-order in which 67 of the students made the errors and addition for 73.5.
They have less knowledge on the formation rules of the irregular plural nouns as well as they frequently add unnecessary element of the noun words that should be
avoided. From the causes of the errors, as many as 72.3 of the students are
influenced by the inter-lingual transfer and 73.5 of them belong to the context of learning as the causes of the errors that they made.
On the errors classification that is based on the areas of the irregular nouns, it can be mentioned from the least level of errors up until the most ones,
respectively i.e. the common irregular nouns 51.7, the umlaut plurals 69.1, the nouns with identical plural and singular 73.5, and the irregular nouns from
Latin and Greek 97.6. Most of students show their less interest as well as willingness in learning
English and they do not actually aware that there are a number of irregular nouns with their various forms, including nouns that have inflectional changes from
singular into plural. The writer found that they lack of exposure in forms of assisting textbooks as well as other attractive materials as what they stated on the
questionnaires and as their teacher confirmed.
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B. Suggestion
According to the result of this research, the writer would like to give suggestions related with, that hopefully those can be used to assist both English
teacher and students in the classrooms, mainly for the topic of irregular nouns. The suggestions include:
1. Teachers are strongly asked to introduce the various kinds of irregular nouns including their formation from singular to plural, in addition the regular ones
which in fact have several inflectional rules, too. 2. It is necessary for students to spend more time reading materials in order to
get used to the exceptional irregular nouns that they are hardly familiar with those words provided on the test.
3. For a better tabulation as well as the calculation of the data, the number of irregular noun items for each category should be the same.
4. More data or object is advised for the next research on error analysis to get more dependable result.
