Syntactic Errors in Prepositional Phrases Made by English Major Students in Written Composition at Omar Al-Mukhtar University

Abstract

This study investigates the syntactic errors in prepositional phrases made by fourth-year English department students at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in written compositions. To promote the effective use of prepositional phrases, participants were tasked with writing a description of their ideal weekend. The collected data was analyzed using the Surface Structure Taxonomy (SST) to categorize the types of syntactic errors. Additionally, the sources of these errors were examined through the lens of interlanguage theory. The findings revealed that misformation errors were the most prevalent, accounting for 50% (18 instances) of the total errors identified. Omission errors followed closely, representing 36.11% (13 instances), while addition errors constituted 13.89% (5 instances). Notably, misordering errors were absent, recorded at 0%. These results highlight the challenges faced by students in mastering prepositional phrases, underscoring the need for targeted instructional strategies to enhance their grammatical proficiency.