AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT IN OPINION ESSAY

WRITTEN BY THE SIXTH-SEMESTER STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITAS

MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI

E-JOURNAL ARTICLE
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement
For Degree of Bachelor of Education in English Study Program

By:
DEBORA AYU PERWITA SARI
(140388203054)

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
UNIVERSITAS MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI
TANJUNGPINANG
2018

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AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF SUBJECT-VERB AGREEMENT IN OPINION ESSAY

WRITTEN BY THE SIXTH-SEMESTER STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITAS

MARITIM RAJA ALI HAJI

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Debora Ayu Perwita Sari, 2Dewi Nopita, 3Rona Elfiza

English Education Study Program

Teacher Training and Education Faculty
Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji

Email: deboraIU96@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research was to find out errors made by the sixth-semester
students regarding subject-verb agreement in the opinion essay written by them as
investigated by the researcher. This research was descriptive qualitative research. There
were no populations and samples. Therefore, this study had participants as research
subjects. The participants were sixth-semester students of Universitas Maritim Raja Ali
Haji Tanjungpinang and they were selected by using purposive sampling technique.
Participants were asked to write an opinion essay on the topic they selected based on
several options provided by the researcher. To analyze the data, the data were described and
then displayed according to each error type. This research showed that students made errors
on both subjects and verbs. It can be concluded that based on the error type, the sixth-
semester students made 48.18% omission error, 18.18% on addition, 30.90% on
misformation, and 2.72% on misordering.

INTRODUCTION

The fact that English is used all over the world proves how important English to be

learned. In our country, Indonesia, English is as a foreign language. In the past, we learned

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English since elementary school but now, English is taught from Junior High school. By

some means or other, it does not change the fact that English is still important as ever. As a

proof, English is one of the subjects that become an indicator for passing the National

Examination.

In learning and acquiring English, many students face various difficulties and

obstacles. The reason is because they are not used to use English inasmuch as it is a foreign

language. English is also different from Indonesian. The differences may occur from many

aspects, such as; morphology, syntax, and semantics. One example, a beginner of English

can be tempted to say or write “The cat black” instead of “The cat is black” due to the first

language pattern that is strongly set. This source of error is called interlingual transfer, as

classified by Brown (2002) that the errors come from the influence of the learner‟s mother

tongue. Other sources of error classified by Brown (2000) are intralingual transfer, that is

the incorrect generalization of rules within the target language; context of learning, where

the errors come from the misleading explanation from the teacher or the textbook; and

communication strategies, which the errors come from the learning style.

Even writing seems hard, English learners should master this skill because the

purpose of learning a language is not only to be kept and merely to gain knowledge but also

to produce the target language both spoken and written. An English learner‟s goal is not

only to produce a word or some words, but he also aims to produce a sentence or some.

Oxford Dictionary states “A sentence is a set of words that is complete in itself, typically

containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or

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command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate

clauses”. So, a sentence should at least have a subject and a predicate. It is one line to

Jackson (2005) who states that a minimal form of a sentence is subject + verb. It can be

taken into account that a sentence cannot stand without a subject or a predicate.

A subject and a predicate are necessary for a sentence. But there are still some

students of English who make errors regarding this. Any of English learners is likely

inevitable from making mistake in agreeing on the subject and predicate or can also be

called subject-verb agreement. Consider this following example, “Here stand Dilan and

Milea.” Notice that the verb stand is not given an „-s‟ or an „-es‟ at the end. It is due to the

subject that has been inversed to the adverb of place. So, „here‟ does not stand as a subject,

yet, the subjects are Dilan and Milea. That explains why the verb is in plural form without

adding an „-s‟. Therefore, subject-verb agreement is where the subject must agree with the

verb. A singular subject requires a singular verb and so does with the plural form (Straus,

2014).

According to the researcher‟s experience during the internship in SMA N 2

Tanjungpinang, the researcher found several errors related to the subject-verb agreement.

This became a proof that senior high school students still made errors regarding subject-

verb agreement.

The researcher also had a small interview with a small number of students in

Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji. The reason was that we might justify the errors made by

the senior high school due to their comprehension of grammar has not advanced yet.

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Therefore, the researcher was curious to figure out about the subject-verb agreement in the

university level. Comparing to senior high school students, they were supposed and

assumed to have a better comprehension of grammar. The result of the informal interview

was almost all of them did not know what subject-verb agreement was when the researcher

mentioned it explicitly. But when the researcher explained it, some of them understood.

Some of them could also answer correctly to the researcher‟s questions, while some others

still made mistake.

Based on this reason, the researcher was interested to figure out about the subject-

verb agreement in the university level. The researcher wanted to know the errors of the

subject-verb agreement they would make as well as to classify them into the types of error.

Hence, the researcher would analyze the error they would make in their essay. Essays were

suitable for university students because they have studied it in writing class so they were

already familiar with complexity in essays. The kind of essay that was used was opinion

essay where the author expresses his/her opinion about certain topic. The use of opinion

essay is suitable because according to Broughton et.al (2003), writing is classified into

three types. They are controlled writing, guided writing and free writing. An opinion essay

is classified as free writing where the students will be only provided a topic then they will

do everything else needed. So, they are free to develop their idea about something. It will

be ideal to analyze the errors regarding subject-verb agreement from their free writing.

Based on all those reasons which were under lied by curiosity, the researcher was

interested to conduct a research entitled “An Error Analysis of Subject-Verb Agreement

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in Opinion Essay Written by the Sixth-Semester Students of Universitas Maritim Raja

Ali Haji.”

The research questions were what are the errors made by the sixth-semester students

of English Study Program in UMRAH related to subject-verb agreement? And how is the

classification of error that the sixth-semester students of English Study Program in

UMRAH make in subject-verb agreement? The purposes were to find out the type of error

that the sixth-semester students of English Department in UMRAH made in subject-verb

agreement and to classify the error into some types of error that the sixth-semester students

of English Department in UMRAH made in subject-verb agreement

METHODOLOGY

This research was a qualitative research since qualitative research avoids to formulate

a hypothesis as the interpretation cannot be measured and there will be deep insight into it

(Gay, Milss, & Airasian, 2012). Qualitative researchers believe that there are multiple

meanings to discover by concluding individual cases. Thus, qualitative researchers focus on

an understanding of the meaning in particular (Dornyei, 2007).

The research was conducted in Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji. The class C of the

sixth-semester students became the participants. There were 21 students in total and they

were chosen by using purposive sampling. Purposive sampling is the process to select a

sample that is believed to be the representative (Gay et.al, 2012). The researcher could use

experience and knowledge to do this. In this research, the researcher interviewed the

lecturers to provide information of students that would become the participants.

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 To take the data from the students, the researcher used writing test as an instrument.

Each student was asked to choose one from five topics provided to write an opinion essay.

After the opinion essays were collected, the researcher then identified the error made by the

students. The data then were described and discussed to answer the research questions. The

researcher classified the errors into four types of error proposed by Dulay, Burt and

Krashen (1982), they are error of omission, error of addition, error of misformation and

error of misordering.

FINDINGS

a. Errors that the Students Made in Subject-Verb Agreement

From the collected opinion essay, the researcher found many errors regarding

subject-verb agreement. There were 110 errors relating to subject-verb agreement. The

students made error in both subject and verb. They omitted necessary item in either subject

or verb which caused the subject and the verb disagreed. It can be seen in this example

Terrorist prisoner^ in Mako Brimob do the resistance. The omission was in the subject

where suffix –s was omitted and it led to an error because the plural verb disagree with the

subject. In the sentence Another reason that support^ the case is... The omission was in the

verb. Since the subject was in the singular form, the verb should be in the singular form by

adding morpheme –s after the word support. They also added an element which made the

subject disagreed with the verb such as in the sentence The general public view that formal

*educations is still just a formality. That was an addition in the subject. Why is homeschool

*is very popular? indicated the error of addition in the verb. They used incorrect form of

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subject and verb such as *Terrorize means to do cruel, arbitrary, threats, and etc, it should

be terrorism instead of terrorize. The sentence Terrorists *is very scary because they act

arbitrarily was the misformation in the verb. It should be are instead of is since the subject

is plural. Some of them wrote the subject and the verb in the wrong order and can be seen

in this sentence How *they can* educate their children?

b. The Classification of Errors that the Students Made in Subject-Verb

Agreement

According to Dulay, Krashen, and Burt (1982), the types of error are

classified into omission, addition, misformation and misordering. The researcher

then classified the errors that the students made into these types of error. The

classification will be shown in this following table:

Table 1
Classification of the Error in Subject-Verb Agreement

No. Type of Error Total of Students Total of Error

1. Omission 17 53

2. Addition 11 20

3. Misformation 13 34

4. Misordering 3 3

Total: 20 Students 110 errors

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 Based on the table, the sixth-semester students made error of omission, error

of addition, error of misformation and error of misordering in subject-verb

agreement even though not every single student made all kind of error.

There are 53 errors of omission in total, 20 errors of addition, 34 errors of

misformation and the least is error of misordering with only 3 errors. To sum up,

there are 110 errors in total regarded subject-verb agreement.

To classify the error, the researcher will also present it in the percentage by

using the formula , where P is the percents, F is frequency of error in

each category and N is as the total number of the whole errors.

Errors of omission were 53 errors from 110 errors.

Errors of addition were 20 errors from 110 errors.

Errors of misformation were 34 errors from 110 errors.

Errors misordering were 3 errors from 110 errors.

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 The percentage of the classification is 48,18% in error of omission, 18,18%

in error of addition, 30,90% in error of misformation, and 2,72% in error of

misordering.

DISCUSSION

a. Error of Omission

In error of omission in subject, most students omitted the suffix „-s‟ in the noun

when the verb required a plural subject. It shows that the students failed to make the

plural subject to agree with the plural verb. For example, student 1 wrote „Terrorist

prisoner in Mako Brimob do the resistance‟. From the sentence, the verb is plural

therefore it requires a plural subject, but the student wrote terrorist prisoner instead of

terroris prisoners. Therefore, the student omitted suffix „-s‟ in the subject. Another

example is „The homeschooler also feel more confident than public school students.‟,

written by student 5. From that sentence, the verb is feel, in the plural form. Therefore,

the student should have written the homeschoolers. The students omitted suffix „-s‟ and

it is counted as an error.

The errors of omission in subject were also various. In using „there+be‟, some

students also failed to make the subject and the verb agreed. For example, „There are

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many alternative school beside formal school‟, There is an expletive. It means that it

has no meaning as a vocabulary and introduces the idea that something exists. The

subject does not agree with the plural verb. Adding the suffix „-s‟ after the word school

is necessary since the subject was alternative school and not there.

The students also committed error of omission in verb more than in subject. For

example, „When your child turn seven‟, it shows that the subject and the verb do not

agree due to the omission in the verb. Since the subject is in singular form, the verb

should be turns. Omitting an „-s‟ in the verb led to an error. Another example of error

that students made is showed in this sentence written by students 3 „Another reason that

support the case is...‟ From this sentence, student 3 omitted suffix „-s‟ in the verb

support. The pronoun that becomes singular because the noun directly in front of it is

singular. There are some errors in omitting the verb because of the confusion of the

existence of pronoun who, that, or which. Some errors also occurred because some of

the students did not only omit a suffix but they did not even write a verb. One of them is

the student 10 who wrote „Because it very simple and helpful‟. He did not write the

verb. The correction will be adding is after the subject it since it is a singular subject.

Another example is student 2 who omitted the verb in the sentence „How with another

science?‟ The correct sentence should be „How is with another science?‟

b. Error of Addition

This type of error happened because the students added unnecessary elements into

the sentences so consequently they made errors. There was a student who added suffix

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„-s‟ to a subject when the verb was not in a plural form. For example, „The general

public view that formal educations is still just a formality‟. From the example, the

student added an „-s‟ to a subject where the verb is in singular form. Therefore it causes

an error. Still the error of addition in subject, there was a student who added a subject in

a sentence which already had a subject. It made the sentence had two subjects at once.

The student 15 wrote, „The children who are at that age children are innocent‟. The

italized word, children, is an addition which contributes an error. Therefore, it should

be deleted to make the sentence correct.

In error of addition in verb, the students added an element which actually was not

needed, or even by adding it, it led to an error. As an example, student 2 wrote this

sentence „Why is homeschool *is very popular?‟ There were two verbs which marked

that sentence. Since it was an interrogative sentence, the student should omit the verb

after the subject. Student 8 also made an error by writing this „They *are also damage

the reputation of religion because their hatred.‟ The sentence did not require a linking

verb because it already had a verb. Therefore, by adding are, it is the reason why

student 8 committed an error.

c. Error of Misformation

The students used wrong form of verb that caused them to make errors. The

example of error of misformation in subject was this sentence, „*Terrorize means to do

cruel, arbitrary, threats, and etc‟. The verb was means. Therefore, the subject before the

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word means should not have been in the form of verb. It should be a noun. Therefore,

the correct form is terrorism.

The students committed a lot of errors in verb. When a subject required a singular

form, some of them wrote the plural form. For example, „Homeschooling *have

disadvantages and advantages.‟ Have is the form of plural verb. But it is wrong because

the subject is in singular form. That is why it is counted as an error. The correction will

be has. Because the singular subject will agree with the verb has.

d. Error of Misordering

The error of misordering occured the least among other types of error. From 110

errors, there were only 3 errors found. There were still students who wrote sentences in

wrong order. They made error and write the misordered sentence. They changed the

order of the subject and the verb. For example, „How they can educate their children?‟

In an interrogative sentence, student 2 wrote the subject and the verb in the incorrect

order. The correct sentence should be „How can they educate their children?‟ And in the

affirmative sentence, there was a student who wrote the wrong sequence, „If the law is

clearly listed on the death penalty, should the country act just as it has been

established.‟ The correct sentence should have been, „If the law is clearly listed on the

death penalty, the country should act just as it has been established.‟

From the findings, it could be summarized that the most frequent error was error of

omission, then error of misformation came next, followed by addition and the least was

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misformation. This happened because many students omitted an element that was

needed to make the subject and the verb agreed, added an unnecessary element, and

used the wrong form of verb which made the subject disagreed. Having been mentioned

in chapter 2, one of the sources of error according to Brown (2000) is interlingual

transfer. This source of error became the reason why many students made error of

omission. Explained by Brown (2000), interlingual transfer comes because of

interference of native language to the target language. In this case, the sixth-semester

students who study English as the target language were interferred by their native

language, Indonesian, therefore they created many errors of omission. In Indonesian,

the pattern of subject-verb agreement is different from English. Alternating the verb

into other form depending on whether the subject is singular or plural is not done in

Indonesian. As a consequent, the English students were interferred and they made error.

The other source of error which may become the reason why the students made

error is intralingual transfer. This error happens because overgeneralization in language

learning. This also occured and seen in the students‟ essay. One example, a student

wrote “a number of convicted terrorist related cases has to get death sentence”. It shows

that the student generalized the rule of English, an article „a‟ means the subject is

singular and requires a singular verb, which explained why the student wrote has as the

verb. The student overgeneralized the rule because a number, even though it has article

a, is an expression of quantity meaning “a lot of”. It should be followed by a plural

noun and a plural verb. That is the same as another student who wrote “Here is a few”.

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CONCLUSION

The researcher limited the study on the error made by the sixth-semester

students in subject-verb agreement. To analyze the error, the instruments which were

used are the students‟ opinion essays.

Related to the research questions, the researcher concludes that the errors that were

made by the students in subject-verb agreement were various. They made error in both

subject and verb of omission, addition, misformation and misordering.

Then, for the second research questions, the researcher classified a number of errors

based on four types. Errors of omission (53 errors) were made by 17 students, errors of

addition (20 errors) were made by 11 students, errors of misformation (34 errors) were

made by 13 students and errors of misordering (3 errors) were made by 3 students. In

total, there were 110 errors by 20 students out of 21 students.

REFERENCES

Broughton, G., Brumfit, C., Flavell, R., Hill, P., & Anita, P. (2003). Teaching English as a
Foreign Language. New York: Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Brown, H. D. (2000). Principle of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY:
Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

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Dornyei, Z. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative,
and Mixed Methodologies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dulay, H., Burt, M., & Krashen, S. (1982). Language Two. New York: Oxford University
Press.

Gay, L. R., Milss, G. E., & Airasian, P. (2012). Educational Research: Competencies for
Analysis and Application. USA: Pearson Education Inc.

Jackson, H. (2005). Good Grammar for Students. Great Britain: The Cromwell Press Ltd,

Straus, J. (2008). The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

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