SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS MADE BY THE SEVENTH GRADERS OF SMP PANGUDI LUHUR 1 YOGYAKARTA A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN FINAL PAPER Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS MADE BY THE SEVENTH GRADERS OF SMP PANGUDI LUHUR 1 YOGYAKARTA A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN FINAL PAPER Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By M.I. Nimas Vidyasari Raras
Student Number: 081214034
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2013
A Sarjana Pendidikan Final Paper on
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS
MADE BY THE SEVENTH GRADERS
OF SMP PANGUDI LUHUR 1 YOGYAKARTA
By M.I. Nimas Vidyasari Raras
Student Number: 081214034 Approved by
Sponsor
A Sarjana Pendidikan Final Paper on
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS
MADE BY THE SEVENTH GRADERS
OF SMP PANGUDI LUHUR 1 YOGYAKARTA
By M.I. NIMAS VIDYASARI RARAS
Student Number: 081214034 Defended before the Board of Examiners on 10 December 2013 and Declared Acceptable
Board of Examiners
Chairperson : C. Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd. _________________ Secretary : Drs. Barli Bram, M.Ed., Ph. D. _________________ Member : Markus Budiraharjo, S.Pd., M.Ed., Ed.D. _________________ Member : G. Punto Aji, S.Pd., M. Hum. _________________ Member : C. Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd. _________________
Yogyakarta, 10 December 2013 Faculty of Teachers Training and Education Sanata Dharma University Dean,
It is amazing how much can be done if we are always doing. -Thomas Jefferson- Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. -Mother Theresa- I dedicate this paper to my great father Heribertus Supardi, my best mother Veronica Himas Indarti, and my beloved brother Yohannes de Britto Dimas Indra Nugroho.
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY I honestly declare that this paper, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, 10 December 2013 The Writer
M.I. Nimas Vidyasari Raras 081214034 LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:
Nama : M.I. Nimas Vidyasari Raras Nomor Mahasiswa : 081214034
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Santa Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT ERRORS
MADE BY THE SEVENTH GRADERS
OF SMP PANGUDI LUHUR 1 YOGYAKARTA
beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta, Pada tanggal: 10 December 2013 Yang menyatakan
ABSTRACT
Raras, Maria Immaculata Nimas Vidyasari. 2013. Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
Made by the Seventh Graders of SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta:
Sanata Dharma University.Learning, understanding, and mastering subject-verb agreement in senior high school could become a good start for students in learning English. Normally, a sentence must have a subject and a verb. Subject-verb agreement is easily found in textbooks, magazines, newspapers, and other sources of information. Since it is a common thing, it must be mastered and understood by the students. However, seventh graders in SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta had problems in writing so that they would make errors in forming subject-verb agreement.
The researcher was interested to investigate further the subject-verb agreement errors since there was anecdotal evidence which was gathered from the seventh graders in SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta. It showed that subject-verb agreement errors were made by many students in the seventh grade. This situation encouraged the researcher to find out what errors were usually made by the students. By doing preliminary data gathering from an interview with a veteran English teacher in that school, the researcher was convinced that students in the seventh grade often made errors in forming their subject-verb agreement. In this research, the researcher undertook a document analysis method by obtaining the data from students’ written work. Students’ written work was chosen because it would be easier to see the errors. Besides, description was chosen because it could aim to improve students’ creativity to describe an object that they often see. In analyzing the data, the researcher used surface structure taxonomy from Dulay, Burt, and Krashen (1983) as the basic theory. The research problem in this research aimed to find out subject-verb agreement errors made by the seventh graders in SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta.
From the data gathered, the researcher found that most of the errors happened in misinformation category (68.65%), followed by omission category (29.85%), and then addition category (1.50%). Since subject-verb agreement is a very basic topic to be learned, it would be better if teachers give more attention to it. In the last chapter, the researcher also offered recommendations for teachers, students, and future researchers who are interested to follow up this study.
Keywords: errors, subject-verb agreement, the seventh graders
ABSTRAK
Raras, Maria Immaculata Nimas Vidyasari. 2013. Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
Made by the Seventh Graders of SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta:
Universitas Sanata Dharma.Mempelajari, memahami, dan menguasai kesesuaian antara subjek dan
kata kerja di sekolah menengah pertama bisa menjadi awal yang baik bagi siswa
untuk mempelajari Bahasa Inggris. Di dalam sebuah kalimat, harus mempunyai
sebuah subjek dan sebuah kata kerja. Kesesuaian antara subjek dan kata kerja
sangat mudah ditemukan pada buku teks, majalah-majalah, koran-koran, dan
sumber informasi lainnya. Karena mudah ditemukan, kesesuaian subjek dan kata
kerja harus bisa dikuasai dan dimengerti oleh siswa. Namun, siswa kelas VII SMP
Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta membuat kesalahan kesesuaian antara subjek dan
kata kerja pada tugas menulis mereka.Peneliti tertarik untuk menyelidiki lebih lanjut tentang kesalahan pada
kesesuaian antara subjek dan kata kerja karena adanya bukti anecdotal yang
dikumpulkan dari siswa kelas VII SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta. Bukti itu
menunjukkan bahwa kesalahan pada kesesuaian antara subjek dan kata kerja
dibuat oleh banyak siswa di kelas VII. Hal ini mendorong peneliti untuk
menemukan kesalahan apa saja yang dibuat siswa. Berdasarkan pengumpulan
data awal dari hasil wawancara dengan guru Bahasa Inggris berpengalaman di
sekolah itu, peneliti semakin yakin bahwa siswa sering membuat kesalahan pada
kesesuaian antara subjek dan kata kerja mereka. Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti
melakukan metode menganalisa dokumen dengan mengumpulkan data dari tugas
tertulis siswa. Tugas tertulis siswa dipilih karena akan lebih mudah untuk
menemukan kesalahan. Selain itu, deskripsi dipilih karena hal itu bisa
meningkatkan kreatifitas siswa untuk dapat mendeskripsikan sebuah objek yang
sering mereka lihat. Untuk menganalisa data, peneliti memakai teori surface
structure taxonomy yang dikemukakan oleh Dulay, Burt, dan Krashen (1983).
Rumusan masalah di dalam kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kesalahan
pada kesesuaian antara subjek dan kata kerja yang dibuat oleh siswa kelas VII
SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta.Berdasarkan data yang diperoleh, peneliti menemukan bahwa sebagian
besar kesalahan terjadi pada kategori misinformation (68.65%), dan kemudian
diikuti oleh kategori omission (29.85%), dan kategori addition (1.50%). Karena
kesesuaian antara subjek dan kata kerja adalah dasar pelajaran yang harus
dipelajari, maka akan lebih baik jika guru memberikan perhatian lebih dalam
mengajarkan hal itu. Pada akhir bab, peneliti juga memberikan saran kepada
guru, siswa, dan peneliti lainnya yang tertarik untuk menindaklanjuti penelitian
ini.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to Jesus Christ and
Mother Mary, who always give me never-ending blessings. I thank Jesus for
giving me many great people who always support and give their biggest love to me.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my sponsor, Markus
Budiraharjo, S.Pd., M.Ed., Ed.D., for his care, time, guidance, and valuable
suggestions in finishing this final paper. I would also like to express my gratitude to all PBI lecturers who had shared their knowledge during my process in PBI.
I would like to thank Br. Valentinus Naryo, FIC, M.Pd. as the headmaster of SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta, A. Ismargyaning Utami,
S.Pd. as the English teacher, and also the respondents of my research, VIID
students, for their willingness to do the assignments.My greatest gratitude goes to my beloved parents, bapak Heribertus
Supardi and ibu Veronica Himas Indarti for their eternal love, never-ending
support, and prayer. My thanks also go to my only one elder brother, mas
Yohannes de Britto Dimas Indra Nugroho for being a great brother in the
world. Without them, I could have never finished this final paper.My gratitude is also expressed to mas gajah, Romo Laurentius Dwi Agus
Merdi Nugroho, Pr., for his support, prayer, and patience for guiding me to be a
better creature of Jesus.My special thanks go to Desiderius Arysta Yuan Christanto for being my number one supporter. His love, care, patience, attention, support, and prayer have completed my life.
At last, I would like to thank all friends and people whose names cannot be mentioned one by one, especially for those who had already supported and helped me in finishing this final paper. May God bless them all. Berkah Dalem.
M.I. Nimas Vidyasari Raras
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE……………………………………………………………….. i APPROVAL PAGES………………………………………………………. ii DEDICATION PAGE……………………………………………………... iv STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY……………………………. v
PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI…………………………….. vi
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………... vii
ABSTRAK ………………………………………………………………….. viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………... xi LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………. xiii LIST OF APPENDICES…………………………………………………... xiv
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION A. Background…………………………………………………….
1 B. Research Method……………………………………………….
5 CHAPTER II. DISCUSSION
A. Review of Related Literature……………………………………
9
1. Error…………………………………………………………
9
a. Definition of Error………………………………………
9 b. Types of Error…………………………………………...
10 1) Linguistic Taxonomy………………………………..
10 2) Surface Structure Taxonomy………………………..
11 a) Omission………………………………………...
11 b) Addition……………………………………….....
11 c) Misinformation………………………………….
12
2. Subject and Verb Agreement………………………………..
22 2) Concrete and Abstract Nouns……………………….
31 APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………..
29 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………….
24 CHAPTER III. CONCLUSIONS …………………………………………
24 B. Findings………………………………………………………...
23 4. Descriptive Writing………………………………………….
23 c. There is and There are……………………………….......
22 3) Count and Noncount Nouns…………………………
22 1) Proper Nouns……………………………………….
14 a. Concord of Number……………………………………..
21 b. Noun…………………………………………………….
20 3) Indefinite Pronouns……………………………….....
19 2) Demonstrative Pronouns…………………………….
19 1) Personal Pronouns…………………………………...
19 a. Pronoun………………………………………………….
17 3. Subject in English………………………………………........
15 b. Concord of Person……………………………………….
33
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1: The Classification and The Subject-Verb Agreement Errors Made by the Students (blank)……………………………………
7 Table 1.2: The Summary of Subject-Verb Agreement Errors Made by the Students……………………………………………
8 Table 2.1: The Forms of Be…………………………………………………
18 Table 2.2: The Modal Auxiliaries…………………………………………...
19 Table 2.3: The Modal Auxiliaries…………………………………………...
20 Table 2.4: Indefinite Pronouns followed by –body, -one, and –thing………
21 Table 2.5: Common Indefinite Pronouns…………………………………....
21 Table 2.6: The Number of Subject-Verb Agreement Errors Made by the Students…………………………………………………..
25
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A Surat Ijin Penelitian…………………………………………………………..
33 Appendix B Samples of Students’ Written Work………………………………………….
35 Appendix C The Classification and the Examples of Errors Made by the Students………
38
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the researcher provides research background containing the
investigated problems, the importance of the study, and an overview of the study strategy. It also provides the research method of the study.
A. Background
English is not an easy foreign language that is commonly taught in Indonesia. As learners of English as a foreign language, students are demanded to have good abilities in both speaking and writing. Since speaking and writing are two productive skills, the students will inevitably produce errors. Errors come up as the effect of different language systems between mother tongue and foreign language. Besides, an error also happens because students do not know what the correct is (Ellis, 1997, p. 17).
Based on a preliminary data gathering through an interview with a veteran English teacher in SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta, it was found that the English teacher was accustomed to teach students based on materials provided in a text book. The English teacher admitted that she did not teach subject-verb agreement in depth, but when the students made errors, she would explain those to them. The English teacher also stated that sometimes the students could not
2
the verb or omit it. Meanwhile, some students could not differentiate a singular nouns or a plural nouns, so that they would make errors on putting the auxiliary verbs is, are, was, and were.
Referring to experts, subject-verb agreement can be defined as follows. According to Langan (1996), a sentence must have a subject and a verb (p. 297). A subject is someone or something that the sentence speaks about, then what the sentence says about the subject is called a verb (Langan, 1996, p. 297). The existence of a subject and a verb in a sentence is obligatory. If there is no subject in a sentence, it cannot be called as a correct sentence. The opposite, if there is no verb in a sentence means that is not a perfect sentence. Wood (1981) states that a verb has to follow its subject based on number or person (p. 12). Furthermore, the subject is used to determine concord where the verb depends on its subject whether it is singular or plural (Quirk & Greenbaum, 1973, p. 10). In addition, Leech and Svartvik (1994) add that concord can also be called as agreement (p. 260). Thus, in this research, subject-verb agreement can be defined as a rule which the verb has to follow its subject that is used to determine concord in both, number or person.
Harmer (2007) states that it is very important to encourage students in order to seriously take more responsibility for their own learning (p. 21).
Learning, understanding, and mastering subject-verb agreement in junior high school could become a good start for the students in learning English. Subject-
3 students can sharpen their understanding in subject-verb agreement by writing.
Practice writing a lot would help the students improving and producing better writing time by time (Nunan, 2003, p. 92).
According to Tiedt (1989), writing is one of some methods to express ideas which could happen in everywhere with any kinds of subject contents and being the concern of every teacher in the world (p. 1). By writing a lot, students are expected to be able to improve their creativity in developing ideas. Moreover, the students could also improve their writing ability by reading. Reading some books or other sources information could develop someone’s ideas and knowledge. Even the students could note the use of punctuation and capitalization or how to spell in uncommon words (Tiedt, 1989, p. 5). Tiedt also states that writing is the most difficult skills and is needed a hard work to do (p. 6). Compared with other skills, writing skill needs to keep ideas before it disappears. However, teachers could encourage students by clustering ideas on paper while writing the ideas freely (Tiedt, 1989, p. 6).
The researcher was interested to investigate the subject-verb agreement errors since there was anecdotal evidence which was gathered from the seventh graders in SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta. Some various errors came up as the problems. It showed that the students had not understood yet about how to compose a good writing. This situation encouraged the researcher to do research in that school.
4
researcher planned to do a research by analyzing what the errors were and how many errors that students had made in their writing assignment which was given by the teacher. However, the researcher only focused on subject-verb agreement errors which were made by the seventh grade students. The seventh graders were chosen because they might make many errors in their writing.
By knowing what the errors are and how many errors students make, the teacher is expected to be able to see her students’ writing ability. It also helps the teacher to give more attention on what the errors usually come up in students’ written work. To create a better improvement in writing, the teacher needs to emphasize the subject-verb agreement materials to the students. Improving the subject-verb agreement topic would give many benefits to the students. A good mastery in the subject-verb agreement would also help the students to easily compose and produce a good grammatically correct writing. Besides, subject and verb are the basic thing in an English sentence. Thus, it is worth to learn since it is important for writing.
The students cannot produce the same writing with the same errors day by day. Thus, it would be a teacher’s duty to help the students improving their writing skill by emphasizing how subject-verb agreement works. Besides, the teacher could give them some writing practices. The researcher hopes that it would build students’ motivation to learn English better. Therefore, the researcher has already formulated a question for this research. That is what are subject-verb
5 B. Research Method
Qualitative inquiry was used in this research. In gathering the data, qualitative research deals with data in the form of words which are purely descriptive but not numerical (Sprinthall et al., 1991, p. 100). The data were collected from the students’ written work which was analyzed by using document analysis procedure. According to Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen (2010), a document analysis is aimed to identify specified characteristics of written or visual materials (p. 457).
The sample of this research was obtained by using purposive sampling. According to Ary et al. (2010), the sample elements of purposive sampling judge to be typical or representative which were chosen from the population. The population in this research was six classes of seventh graders at SMP Pangudi
Luhur 1 Yogyakarta. However, the researcher only gathered from one class since
it was not possible to involve all students from six classes by considering the accessibility to the respondents, financial constraint, and time availability. The researcher chose class VIID since there were no absent students in that class.
In conducting this qualitative research, the researcher served human and documents as the important instruments to obtain and analyze the data. According to Ary et al. (2010), the students’ writing was written by people who experienced the phenomena under study directly which can be considered as a primary source (p. 443). That is why the researcher chose students’ written work with description
6 to help students improving their creativity and involving their imagination.
Besides, this topic had already discussed in the class, so that the data for this research was able to become an exercise for the students as well.
Before the researcher collected the data, there were several steps as procedures. The researcher made a thesis proposal and asked approval from the researcher’s advisor. After obtaining approval from the researcher’s advisor, the researcher asked to permission letter from university. The next day, the researcher came to school and asked permission from the headmaster of SMP Pangudi Luhur 1 Yogyakarta and the English teacher whose classes were used in this research.
On the process of obtaining the data, the researcher could not join the class since that week was for daily exam. The researcher asked help from the English teacher to give instruction to the students. The data was collected from the English teacher between 22 and 29 May, 2013. It took only a week because the teacher and the students were really cooperative helping the researcher. After collecting all the data, the researcher started to analyze the data by finding the errors and categorize them based on the theories by experts in Chapter II.
There were several steps the researcher had to do before analyzing the errors. First, the researcher assigned a number for each student’s written work as a code. Second, the researcher checked the students’ written work by underlying the errors. Third, the errors were put into the table provided. Fourth, the researcher tried to analyze and classify the subject-verb agreement errors according to the
7
namely (1) omission, (2) addition which is sub-categorized into regularization, double-marking, and simple additions, (3) misinformation which is sub- categorized into regularization, archi-forms, and alternating, (4) misordering (as cited in Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005, p. 61). Fifth, the researcher calculated the percentage and from the percentage the researcher could know which types of errors that mostly did by the seventh graders at SMP Pangudi Luhur 1
Yogyakarta. Table 1.1. below is how the researcher classified and calculated the
percentage each type of errors that have been made by the students.Table 1.1. : The Classification and The Subject-Verb Agreement Errors Doc # Found in Students’ Agreement Errors Written Work Subject-Verb Analysis Errors Possible Correction Brief Made by the Students (blank) Omission Addition Misinformati Misordering R DM SA R Ar-F/ Types of Errors on Total Number of Each Type of Errors Al-F The Percentage of Each Type of Errors Total Number of All ErrorsThe researcher used a formula to calculate the percentage of each type error that the researcher found in students’ written work. The formula can be seen below.
A x 100% B A = The total number of each type of errors B = The total number of all errors
After obtaining the percentage from each type of errors, the researcher
8
researcher could present the summary of some error examples and the percentage that have been made by the students in Table 1.2. as below.
Table 1.2: The Summary of Subject-Verb Agreement Errors Made by the Students
No Error Category Error Sub-Category Examples of Error Number of Errors Percentage (%)1. Omission -
2. Addition Regularization Double-marking Simple additions
3. Misinformation Regularization Archi-forms/Alternating forms
4. Misordering -
At last, the researcher discussed further what she had already analyzed based on the theories in Chapter II.
CHAPTER II DISCUSSION In this chapter, the researcher presents review of related literature based on
the theories from some experts which become the bases of this research. The second part presents the findings as well as the interpretation of the findings.
A. Review of Related Literature
In this research, the researcher used several theories from experts to help to analyze the data. This part will be elaborated more the theories below.
1. Error
a. Definition of Error
Defining the word error would not be easy since error has its synonymous word. The term that almost synonymous with error is mistake. James (1998) as cited in Brown (2000) argues that an error and a mistake cannot always be distinguished. For example an English learner says “John cans sing”, but in other time he/she says “John can sing”. From the previous example it is difficult to determine a word “cans” is an error or a mistake (p. 218). According to Ellis (1997), an error raises gaps in learner’s knowledge and happens because the learner does not master or even misunderstand the correct one (p. 17). However, still according to Ellis (1997), a mistake is an occasional lapse where learners
Corder (1967) says that the term mistake is a term used by performance errors, while the term error is a developing knowledge by learners rule system that is reserved for the systematic deviation in some of the second language literature (as cited in Dulay, Burt, & Krashen, 1982, p. 139). Sometimes researchers also distinguish the factors of errors. Chomsky (1965) calls fatigue and inattention as performance factors, while the lack of learners’ knowledge of the rules of the language is called as competence factors (as cited in Dulay et al., 1982, p. 139).
Performance and competence errors are difficult to be distinguished because both are also very important. Since the nature of a deviation has not been classified as a performance or competence error, the term error does not restrict to competence-based deviations. Thus, an error refers to any deviation that is selected from norm of language performance, no matter what the characteristics or causes might be (Dulay et al., 1982, p.139).
b. Types of Error
Some of students’ written compositions are possibly to produce a lot of various errors. Therefore, it is essential to classify errors based on their type.
1) Linguistic Taxonomy
This kind of taxonomy is categorized from a descriptive grammar in target language. Besides, the grammar is relating to basic sentence structure, the verb phrase, verb complementation, the noun phrase, prepositional phrases, adjuncts, category classifies the errors based on a language component and a particular language aspect. The language components are phonology (pronunciation), syntax and morphology (grammar), semantics and lexicon (meaning and vocabulary), and discourse (style) (p. 146).
2) Surface Structure Taxonomy
In this part, Dulay et al. (1982) divide the category into omission, addition, misinformation, and misordering that can be seen below.
a) Omission
According to Dulay et al. (1982), the errors can be classified as an omission when there is an absence of an item that should appear in a well-formed sentence (p. 154), for example, *Mary president new company instead of Mary is the president of the new company.
b) Addition
Addition is the opposite of omission. The addition can be meant as the presence of an item that should not appear in a well-formed sentence. It is sub- categorized into:
(1) Double Marking
According to Dulay et al. (1982), double marking is two items which appear rather than one and those are marked for the same feature (p. 156), for example, *He doesn’t knows my name instead of He doesn’t know my name. Another example is *We didn’t went there instead of We didn’t go there.
(2) Regularization
Dulay et al. (1982) state that “the addition category are those in which a marker that is typically added to a linguistic item is erroneously added to exceptional items of the given class that do not take a marker”, it is called regularization errors (p. 157). For example: *sheeps and *putted. The plural form of *sheep is still the same instead of *sheeps. Besides, the verb *putted is not correct, the correct past tense is *put.
(3) Simple Addition
Simple addition can be defined as a neither addition error that is not double marking or regularization (Dulay et al., 1982, p. 158).
c) Misinformation
Misinformation deals with the incorrect form of the morpheme or structure. There is the difference between omission and misinformation. In omission the item is not supplied but in misinformation the learner supplies something. According to Dulay et al. (1982) misinformation can be sub- categorized into (p. 158):
(1) Regularization
Dulay et al. (1982) say that regularization in misinformation category which is a regular marker is applied in an irregular one. For example: *runned instead of *run, *gooses instead of *geese (p. 158). Other examples of regularization under misinformation category are *I falled instead of *I fell,
(2) Archi-forms
Archi-forms refer to form selected by learners. Dulay et al. (1982) explain further that a learner may temporarily select just one of English demonstrative adjectives such as this, that, these, and those, to do the work for several of them. The learners usually write *that dog and *that dogs (p. 160).
(3) Alternating Forms
This last type of misinformation happens because the use of archi-form that often makes fairly free alternation of various members of a class with each other, as seen in *Those dog and *This cats (Dulay et al., 1982, p. 161).
d) Misordering
Misordering errors are characterized by the incorrect placement morpheme or group of morpheme which is not place in a well-formed sentence e.g. *She fights
all the time her brother (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005, p. 61) instead of She fights
with her brother.c. Sources of Error
A researcher must have already thought the various sources of errors made by learners. Since many possibilities why learners made some errors in their writing, Brown (2000) states that by trying to identify the sources, we are expected to understand how the learner’s cognitive and affective processes are related to the linguistic system and to formulate the integrated understanding in second language acquisition process (p. 223). Besides, according to Brown mother tongue and many errors are detectable in learner speech, but it is not all errors are the result from the native language transfer, e.g. *the book of Jack instead of *Jack’s book. Second, intralingual transfer, is overgeneralization within the target language. This is the negative part of intralingual transfer. For example, *Does John can sing?, *He goed, *I don’t know what time is it. Third,
context of learning, happens when there are a misleading error explanation from
the teacher, a faulty presentation in a textbook, and improperly drill to memorize pattern.
2. Subject and Verb Agreement Langan (1996) states every sentence must have a subject and a verb.
Subject is who or something that the sentence speaks about, then what the
sentence says about the subject is called verb (p. 297). Langan (1996) adds the right sentence shows that a verb has to follow its subject based on the types of concord (p. 338). Besides, Leech and Svartvik (1994) divide concord into two types, namely concord of number and concord of person (p. 260). Concord can also be called as agreement (Leech & Svartvik, 1994, p. 260).
According to Greenbaum (1989), the general rules of subject-verb agreement are when the verb agrees with its subject in number and person, while agreement happens when the verb makes any distinctions in number and person. However, for all verbs other than be, the distinctions only can happen in Present Tense. In the third person singular, the verb has the –s form, and for the third
[1] The noise distracts them. [2] The noises distract them. From the examples above, [1] the noise is the singular subject that is followed by verb –s form. For the second example, [2] the plural subject the noises is followed by the base form.
a. Concord of Number
Langan (1996) states that in this concord number, a verb must agree with its subject in the sentence. In this case, a singular subject (one person or thing) should be followed by a singular verb, while a plural subject (more than one person or thing) should be followed by a plural verb (p. 338), for example:
[3] The girl writes a letter. [4] Daniel is an artist. [5] My friends go to Jakarta. [6] The boys in this class are taller than the girls. From the examples above, the subjects in sentences [3] and [4] are singular so it is followed by a singular verb. Meanwhile, the subjects in the sentences [5] and [6] are plural so that it must be followed by a plural verb.
Langan (1996) also states when words come between the subject and the verb in a sentence, subject-verb agreement does not change (p. 338).
[7] A boy with glasses drinks a mineral water. [8] The students in the class give a birthday present to their English The subject boy in [7] is singular, so it should be followed by a singular verb, while subject in sentence [8], students, is plural, so that it would be followed by a plural verb. Langan (1996) also adds in order to make it become easier, learners should cross out the prepositional phrases to find out the subject (p. 338), for example *A boy with glasses drinks a mineral water.
In addition, Langan (1996) states that a verb must agree with its subject even when the verb comes before the subject (p. 339). Langan (1996) also provides some words that may precede the subject, namely there, here, in questions, who, which, what, and where.
[9] There are four children in the car. [10] Here is the card. [11] Where are your books? Furthermore, Langan (1996) mentions when subjects in a sentence are joined by either…or, neither…nor, not only…but also, the verb must agree with the subject that is closer to the verb (p. 340). The examples can be seen as follows:
[12] Either my father or my mom likes to sing the old song. [13] Neither Andrew nor his friends know the right answer. In sentence [12], the closest subject is my mom which is singular, so it is followed by a singular verb likes. Meanwhile, in sentence [13] the closest subject is his
friends which is plural, it means that the plural subject his friends should be
Besides, Langan (1996) adds if subjects in a sentence are joined by and, they would be followed by a plural verb (p. 340). The examples are: [14] Desya, Clarina, and Rio are very smart students in the class. [15] The shirt, the skirt, and the hat are new. In addition, Greenbaum (1989) states if and is not present in a sentence, the subject is still decided as plural (p. 211).
[16] Desya, Clarina, Rio are very smart students in the class. [17] The shirt, the skirt, the hat are new. However, Greenbaum (1989) also states if the noun phrases are introduced by every or each, the subjects are considered singular (p. 211).
[18] Every man and every woman has the same right. [19] Each girl and each boy in the seventh-grade is a great student.