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2. The General Classifications of the Students’ Mistakes
The second question of this research was to classify the students’ mistakes on analysing the adjective clauses using the X schema. Ellis 1997: 17 defines
mistake as the reflection of occasional lapses in performance; they occur because, in particular instances, the learners are unable to perform what they know. In this
case, the students’ mistakes were closely related to their performance on the subjects which were tested. In addition, the students’ mistakes in this research
were based on the students’ work compared to the related literatures to depict the theory and practice. The classifications of the students’ mistakes were divided into
some parts in order to elaborate the each finding in details. In addition, the writer also provided a quick-look reference of the students’ mistakes Appendix B.
a. Main Clause, Subordinate Clause and Modifier
In the Part A, question, number one, two and three tested the students’ knowledge and comprehension on the independent clause, dependent clause or
subordinate clause and modifier which were related to the adjective clause. Shortly, an adjective clause is a dependent clause which modifies the noun or
pronoun of the independent clause which is marked by the occurrence of the relatives pronouns such as who, which and whom Azar, 1999: 267; Murphy,
1985: 182 and Swan, 2005: 477. Question number one focused on sentence [1]. Based on the sentence [1],
the students should identify whether the clause which was bold was an adjective clause, a noun clause, an adverb clause or a noun phrase.
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[1] The boy who is standing at the corner is very naughty.
The clause which was bold in sentence [1] was an adjective clause. It was an adjective clause because it was obvious that the occurrence of the relative pronoun
who after the noun phrase the boy indicated or marked that it is an adjective clause. In addition, the clause which was bold gave further information about the
noun phrase the boy. By the process of embedding Celce-Murcia and Larsen- Freeman, 1999: 527-573, this adjective clause attached to another sentence to
become a complex sentence. There was an interesting finding in this research related to the question.
The result showed that the students who answered adjective clause as the correct answer and the students who answered noun clause as the correct answer shared
almost the same proportion. There were 13 students 28.89 answered adjective clause as the correct answer. However, there were 14 students 31.11 answered
noun clause as the correct answer. It was interesting because, noun clauses and adjectives clauses are somewhat similar. Therefore, by the students’ answers it
could be inferred that there were confusion among the students to differentiate between an adjective clause and a noun clause. It is because of the similarities
between the connector of the adjective clause the noun clause. It is also sustained by the literature which is elaborated by Phillips 2003: 220. She elaborates that a
noun clause is a clause that functions as noun. Furthermore, she explains that because of its functions as a noun, a noun clause is used in a sentence as either an
object of verb, an object of preposition or the subject of the sentence. However, a noun clause is similar in some degree to an adjective clause. A noun clause can
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use a connector such as that, which and who which in fact they are the same as relative pronouns Phillips, 2003: 218 and 220. Therefore, if sentence [1] was
compared to what Philips argues, it was true that the clause which was bold in sentence [1] was not a noun clause because it functioned as a modifier of the
subject not as the subject, object or object of preposition. On the other hand, the rest of the students answered either adverb clause or
noun phrase. There were four students 8.89 answered adverb clause and 13 students 28.89 answered noun phrase. The clause which is bold in sentence [1]
was not an adverb clause because according to Azar 1999: 359 and Phillips 2003: 109 and 111, adverb clause functions to utter time, cause, contrast, and
condition in a sentence. Adverb clause usually uses conjunctions such as after, before, since, because, although, and unless. Therefore, if it was contrasted to the
clause which was bold in sentence [1], it was not an adverb clause because of two reasons. First, it did not use conjunctions as the literature puts forward and second
it functioned to give further information about the noun which precedes it and it does not relate to the state of time, cause contrast and condition. The clause which
is bold in sentence [1] was also not a noun phrase because according to Radford 1997: 521, a phrase refers to nonclausal expression. In examples, group of words
like go to school, on the floor and proud of you are phrases. Therefore, who is standing at the corner was not a phrase because it contained a subject who and
verb is standing. In addition, only one student did not answer for this question. In question number two the students were required to analyse which
phrase or clause in the sentence [1] that functioned as a modifier of the subject. As PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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it had been stated in the beginning, an adjective clause also functioned as a modifier of a sentence because it modified or gave further explanation about the
noun or pronoun which preceded it. Therefore, in other words, by looking for the adjective clause in sentence [1] it automatically would find the modifier.
Sentence [1] consists of an adjective clause which was embedded in a main clause Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999: 572 and Murphy, 1985:
182. Therefore, sentence [1] could be broken down into two sentences, a main clause [1a] and a subordinate clause [1b].
[1a] The boy is very naughty. [1b] The boy is standing at the corner.
Comparing [1a] and [1b] to [1] it could be concluded that [1b] was embedded in [1a]. The occurrence of the relative pronoun who was because the boy in [1b]
corresponded to the boy in [1a]. Therefore, the sentence [1b] became the modifier. Sentence [1b] was the modifier of the main clause because it had two properties.
First, the occurrence of the relative pronoun who after the subject marked that it was an adjective clause. Second, it modified or gave further explanation about the
subject the boy of the main clause. An interesting finding also occurred in this question. In this, question most
of the students answered correctly that who is standing at the corner is the modifier. The number of the students who answered correctly was 43 students
95.56 of the students. However, there was one student 2.22 answered at the corner as the modifier. This phrase was not the modifier because it functioned
as an adverb of the verb is standing. There was also one student 2.22 who PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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answered the boy as the modifier. It is clear that in sentence [1] the boy functions as the subject which was modified by an adjective clause. Surely, it was not the
modifier. On contrary to number two, the question number three required the
students to identify the main clause of the sentence [2]. [2] The boy who is smart is doing his homework.
The sentence [2] was a complex sentence consisted of a main clause and a subordinate clause. In the sentence [2] it could be identified that there was an
adjective clause which was marked by the use of relative pronoun who Murphy, 1985: 182 and Swan, 2005: 477. Therefore, the clause who is smart was an
adjective clause. Since the clause who is smart was an adjective clause, it could be concluded then that the rest of the sentence was the main clause. The main clause
of the sentence [2] is The boy is doing his homework. Based on the test, 38 students 84.44 answered correctly. However,
there were six students 13.33 answered the boy is smart as the main clause. This sentence was not the main clause because actually this sentence was the
subordinate clause which had been embedded in the main clause. Since the phrase the boy corresponded to the same phrase in the main clause, the relative pronoun
who replaced it and at the same time it marked and formed an adjective clause. Only one student 2.22 answered who is smart as the main clause. It was also
not the main clause because the presence of the relative pronoun who marked that it was an adjective clause which was a subordinate or a dependent clause.
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b. Complementizer Phrase and Wh Movement
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