66 Though most answers were correct refer to table 4.5, there were still 36.79 of
the answers which were incorrect. Table 4.8 illustrates the errors of addition for plural generic nouns, particularly when the students were asked to choose the
correct article for the sentence
A uniform is a set of standard clothes worn by __ members of organizations.
36.79 of the answers wereA uniform is a set of standard clothes worn by the
members of organizations. Actually, article the was not neededsince it was the article for definite nouns. Meanwhile, the word members was included in plural
generic nouns, which represented all organization members in the world. This kind of noun needed no article. In other words, the correct answer for the example
provided was A uniform is a set of standard clothes worn by Ø members of
organizations.
The second example illustrated that the errors occurred when the students were asked to translate Unicorn hanya ada di dongeng-dongeng. In designing this test
item, the researcher violated Indonesian structure which ruled that a generic noun cannot be in the form of repeated words. The purpose of the rule violation is to
give a clue for the students that the intended answer for the item was in the form of plural generic nouns. This clue was effective, yet, there were still several
students who were confused with this concept, as a result, they answered A
67
unicorn only exists in the tales instead of answering A unicorn only exists in Ø
tales
.
To sum up, most students already mastered this concept, yet there were still several students who were confused about this concept. As a result, 36.79 of the
answers was the instead of Øas the correct article. It may be because in Indonesian
language, a repeated word or a plural form has a sense of definite meaning. The detailed explanation of the interference of Indonesian plural form will be
elaborated further in the discussion of the possible causes of errors.
The errors showed that the students had problem with the concept of generic nouns. When they had to choose the articles for singular and plural generic nouns,
they tended to choose the incorrect article. The possible causes why it is difficult for the students to understand the concept of generic nouns or why the students
make errors in such concept are explained in the next subchapter discussing the possible causes of errors.
C. The Possible Causes of Errors
This subchapter discusses the possible causes of the two common errors found in the students’ test results, which are: the omission of a oran, and the addition of
the. The possible sources of errors would be analyzed based on two processes of errors: interlingual and intralingual errors. If the possible causes of errors are from
the possible interference of Indonesian Language, they are called interlingual
