AN ERROR ANALYSIS ON THE SYNTACTIC DEVIATIONS OF

GRADE 11 STUDENTS

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL

Volume: 33
Issue 3
Pages: 358-365
Document ID: 2025PEMJ3163
DOI: 10.70838/pemj.330307
Manuscript Accepted: 02-19-2025
 Psych Educ, 2025, 33(3): 358-365, Document ID:2025PEMJ3163, doi:10.70838/pemj.330307, ISSN 2822-4353
Research Article

An Error Analysis on the Syntactic Deviations of Grade 11 Students

Ernie Joy T. Pacomios*
For affiliations and correspondence, see the last page.
Abstract
Effective communication requires a strong command of syntax. However, many Senior High School students struggle
with applying syntactic conventions in their writing which leads to frequent errors. This study aimed to analyze and
categorize syntactic deviations in Grade 11 students' essays. Using a sample of 75 participants, essays were collected
and analyzed based on Dulay et al.’s (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy, which classifies errors into omission,
addition, misordering, and misformation. Results showed that students committed all five types of syntactic deviations,
with omission being the most frequent. Findings suggest that students struggle with writing due to limited awareness
of syntactic rules and conventions. The study recommends targeted syntax instruction and intervention programs to
improve students' writing skills.
Keywords: syntax, errors, omission, addition, misformation, misordering, blending

Introduction
English core subjects in the Senior High School K-12 Curriculum, are designed to hone the communication skills of students and
develop their literacy and critical thinking skills as well (Department of Education, 2016). These skills are part of the most essential
competencies in the 21st Century world (Van Laar et al., 2017). To allow others and oneself to grasp and share information accurately
and easily, good communication skills are required. Poor communication skills, on the other hand, lead to a lot of misunderstanding
and lack of literacy among the students. One of the qualities of having good communication skills is the correctness of sentence
construction or the proper application of the conventions in syntax (Frazer et al., 1984).
Syntax is the study of the construction of sentences and the relationships between their constituent components, as well as the
organization of words in sentences, clauses, and phrases. In addition, syntactic awareness allows the language learners to build
alternative phrases with the same meaning, which simplifies their work and improves their comprehension of the language itself
(Chomsky, 1969).
Furthermore, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to ensure that all girls and boys have a complete, free,
equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes by 2030 (Rieckmann, 2017).
Relative to this, various intervention initiatives are being implemented by the Department of Education to help Filipino children who
are falling behind in reading and writing including Every Child A Reader Program (ECARP) (Department of Education, 2011).
However, based on the Sustainable Development Goal (SGD) indicator, it has been found that the Philippines is the second-worst
performer on the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics in three learning domains: reading, writing, and mathematics among the six
countries who participated. It was concluded that 80% of Filipino learners (UNICEF & SEAMEO, 2020).
It has been observed that some of the Senior High School students often commit syntactic deviations in their written works (Gamilo &
Aggaba, 2019). Many Senior High School students continue to struggle with academic writing (Roxas, 2020). Hence, this study claimed
that syntactic awareness must be a prerequisite in improving one’s communication skills in writing.
The related studies reviewed were focused on the students’ syntactic deviations committed to their written discourses. The researcher
concluded that the students find it hard to communicate using proper syntax conventions. However, none of these researchers reviewed
to study the syntactic deviations committed by Grade 11 students based on their written works in their English core subjects in Senior
High School.
Research Questions
This study, therefore, investigated the syntactic deviations in the written essays of the Grade 11 students. More specifically, the
following aims were answered:
1. To identify the syntactic deviations of the Grade 11 students.
2. To categorize the syntactic deviations of the Grade 11 students.
3. To determine the most frequent syntactic error of the Grade 11 students.
Literature Review
This study is anchored on the concept of Error Analysis (EA) (Corder, 1981). Error Analysis (EA) is a branch of Applied Linguistics
that gained popularity in the 1960s by focusing on Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Error Analysis (EA) is the study of learner
errors. It is a method of examining learner language and is used in language teaching to determine whether errors are caused by L1
interference or developmental factors (Reid, 1993).
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Research Article

Furthermore, Corder (1981) discussed that the errors of a language learner demonstrate how the learner has systematically mastered
the language. In three different ways, learner errors are considered as a beneficial tool. For starters, they are beneficial to the teacher.
They can provide information to the teacher about how the learner's learning is progressing. Second, they demonstrate to the researcher
what learners' language learning tactics are. Finally, they are seen as a tool that the student can utilize to help them learn the language.
It is concerned with the learner's ability to test assumptions about the nature of the language they are learning.
The researcher adopted Dulay et al.’s (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy, which classified the syntactic deviations into five (5):
omission, addition, misformation, misordering and blending. According to Dulay et al. (1982), the learners' incorrect version differs
from the expected version. This emphasizes how surface structures are changed. The students may delete necessary things or add
unneeded ones, misform the objects, or arrange them in an unorganized manner. These syntactic deviations can be classified into five
types: omission, addition, misformation, misordering and blending.
Omission errors occur when a student forgets to provide important details that must be included in a well-rehearsed speech.
Grammatical morphemes are omitted far more frequently by language learners than content words.
The appearance of elements that should not otherwise appear in a well-performed utterance characterizes addition errors, which are the
polar opposite of omission errors. It usually happens when the learner is learning a second language. Addition errors such as
regularizations, duplicate marks, and simple additions have been studied in the speech of both first and second language learners.
The utilization of the morpheme or structure characterizes misformation errors. While the item is not offered in omission errors, in
misformation errors, the learner supplies something, even if it is erroneous.
The erroneous placing of morphemes in an utterance are known as misordering errors. They occur in a systematic manner for both first
and second language acquisition in previously acquired structures.
The contamination, cross-association, or hybridization error are all terms used to describe the blending errors. When two alternative
grammatical forms combine to produce an ungrammatical blend, this is known as blending.
Many studies have provided useful insights into analyzing students' syntactic deviations. The most common syntactic deviations
committed by students, according to Hafiz (2018), are in sentence construction, subject verb agreement, tense, auxiliary verb, number,
usage of conjunction, preposition, article, and so on. In the findings of their study, they revealed that many of the students in this study
were labeled as slow learners who had no idea how important writing skills were. Learners' lack of earnestness and focus lead to
blunders and faults in their writing. Furthermore, the mistakes were thought to be linked to the transfer of mother tongue and
overgeneralization.
Moreover, Al-Badawi (2013) used Corder's (1981) and Dulay et al.’s (1982) descriptive method to error analysis to uncover the
prevalent phonetic, morphological, and syntactic mistakes made by native Arabic-speaking English learners during speaking activities.
Substitution of the consonants /f/ for /v/ and /p/ for /b/, and the vowels / for //, / for //, and / for //; failure to use the plural and third-
person singular (-s/es), the comparative (-er), and the progressive (-ing); lack of subject–verb agreement; erroneous use of prepositions,
and erroneous addition and deletion of certain auxiliaries were among the most common phonetic, morphological, and syntactic
deviations identified.
In the study of Benzigar and Vinothini (2021), it revealed that interlingual interference affects learners' syntactic deviations. They
struggle with specific aspects of English structures, particularly when the syntactic rules of English diverge from those of their native
tongue. They found that these syntactic mistakes can also be caused by learners' poor grasp of the English language's norms and pattern,
as well as not learning a language in its naturalistic, non-classroom, English-speaking situations. The norms of English are different
from those of their native tongue.
Furthermore, Sultan (2015) investigated the syntactic deviations prevalent in Pakistani undergraduate students' written English. This
related study sought to outline the possible causes of these errors. To achieve the study’s aims, the study used content analysis based
on Corder's error analysis technique. After that, the corpus was examined to find syntactic mistakes and identify their prevalence, kinds,
and causes. Erroneous verb phrases, run-on sentences, semantically and syntactically ill-formed clauses owing to literal translation
from mother tongue, and incorrect vocabulary were the primary syntactic mistakes that emerged from the study. Interlingual and
intralingual mistakes were detected in similar numbers. Poor competence, inadequate training, and limited exposure to the target
language are thought to be the primary reasons of the mistakes identified.
In addition, Talosa and Maguddayao (2018) assessed the syntactic deviations made by second language learners in ESL writing. The
objective of their study was to assess second language learners' syntactic mistakes in ESL writing. The data collected from fifty-four
(54) third- and fourth-year ESL students shows that ESL students are rarely exposed to writing. Tense, pronoun-antecedent agreement,
and faulty parallelism are the most common errors they make along syntactic structures. Those in higher year levels are less likely to
make syntactic mistakes. Furthermore, the prevalence or occurrence of syntactic mistakes in ESL writing is strongly linked to the year
level and writing exposure.
Tati and Gedion (2017) also examined the English syntactic deviations that were found in the written compositions of Malaysian ESL

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students at the Politeknik Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia. The participants were 50 multilingual students who spoke their native
language, Malay as a second language, and English as a third or foreign language. Data was gathered in the form of descriptive essays
from the written discourse. The subjects were given 45 minutes to write in the classroom. To determine the sources of syntactic
mistakes, kinds of common errors, weakness regions, and difficulties that commonly arise in written writing, 51 categories of errors
were identified.
Abdelmohsen (2022) conducted a thorough examination of writing mistakes made by Arab EFL learners, which focuses on the impact
of both intralingual and interlingual elements. The study, which was carried out at eight public higher education institutions in Oman,
shows that L2 rule misapplications account for a larger portion of students' mistakes than L1 interference. Teachers find it difficult to
identify the causes of errors, despite students' favorable views toward L2 learning, underscoring the need for improved teacher
preparation. Based on ideas of interlanguage and transfer of learning, the study provides insightful information for improving EFL
training. Its emphasis on Omani students, however, restricts generalizability and calls for further cross-regional research.
Gayo and Widodo (2018) investigated the morphological and syntactical errors that occur in students' English writing, as well as the
variables that produce these errors, in his study on the Analysis of Morphological and Syntactical Errors on the English Writing of
Junior High School Indonesian Students. The mistakes and their causes were reported and explored in this qualitative descriptive study.
The study's findings revealed that morphological mistakes occur in the omission, addition, and misformation of derivation, inflection,
preposition, article, copula be, personal pronoun, auxiliary, and determiner, among other things. Second, syntactical mistakes arise
when the passive voice, tense, noun phrase, auxiliary, subject-verb agreement, and determiner are omitted, added, misformed, or
disordered. Interlingual (first language interference) and intralingual variables are the two most common sources of mistakes.
Yalcin (2010) conducted a study on the Turkish speaking first year and third year ELT students’ syntactic deviations in their
argumentative essays. According to the findings, the texts had nine different categories of mistakes. Article, verb, noun, and pronoun
usage in frequency order accounted for 86 percent of all the mistakes discovered. The non-parametric tests revealed no significant
difference in mistake frequencies between the two-year levels, but they did indicate a substantial difference between article and verb
usage errors and all other forms of errors. The most common errors, specifically article usage errors, were focused on and characterized
in terms of specificity, genericity, originality, and discourse characteristics in light of the findings. Noun phases with [– specific],
[+generic, +plural], and [–unique] nouns, as well as noun phrases that were freshly introduced in the discourse, showed extensive
inclusion of "the." These findings may imply that the current ELT students' acquisition of article usage has not yet been finished, based
on the available research.
In summary, the related studies reviewed were focused on the students’ syntactic deviations committed in their written essays. The
researcher concluded that the students find it hard to communicate or write using the proper conventions of syntax. However, none of
these researchers reviewed to study the syntactic deviations committed by Senior High School Students, specifically from the Grade
11.
Methodology
Research Design
This study utilizes a convergent mixed-method design, integrating both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitative phase
involves identifying syntactic deviations in students' writing, while the quantitative phase examines the frequency of these errors. The
specific qualitative research design used is content analysis, focusing on categorizing and interpreting the syntactic deviations based
on Dulay et al.’s (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy. Meanwhile, the quantitative research design follows a descriptive approach,
quantifying the occurrences of identified syntactic deviations.
Participants
The study is conducted at Lourdes College Inc., Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental, specifically in the Senior High School
Department. Participants are selected using purposive sampling, ensuring they meet the following inclusion criteria: Filipino students,
Grade 11 level, aged between 15-17 years old, and enrolled in 21st Century Literature class. A total of 75 students from two sections
in the Senior High School Department of Lourdes College, Inc. are included in the study.
Instrument
The primary instrument used in the study is student-written essays, specifically a 500-word essay that serves as the basis for syntactic
deviation analysis. The errors in these essays are classified using Dulay et al.’s (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy, which categorizes
syntactic deviations into five types: omission, addition, misformation, misordering, and blending.
Procedure
The data gathering procedure begins with a permit letter sent to the Principal of Lourdes College Integrated Basic Education
Department, seeking approval for conducting the study. After securing permission, an informed consent form is distributed to parents
or legal guardians of minors, as well as an assent form for the student participants. Upon receiving consent, the researcher collects the

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students’ previously written essays from their performance tasks. The collected essays undergo qualitative and quantitative analysis,
focusing on identifying, categorizing, and quantifying syntactic deviations.
Data Analysis
The study employs both qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods. In the qualitative phase, the researcher manually examines
each essay, identifying and classifying syntactic deviations according to Dulay et al.’s (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy. In the
quantitative phase, syntactic deviation is determined and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as determining frequency of
occurrence of syntactic deviations, and their corresponding percentages.
Ethical Considerations
Ethical considerations are strictly adhered to in this study. Since the study involves minors, written consent is obtained from parents or
legal guardians, while students' assent is also secured before participation. The identities of the participants remain anonymous, and
their personal data are kept confidential. The study ensures that participants are not subjected to harm or distress. Proper authorization
from the school administration is obtained before conducting the study. Additionally, all collected data are securely stored and used
exclusively for academic purposes. This methodological approach ensures a rigorous, ethical, and systematic examination of syntactic
deviations in student writing while maintaining the integrity and reliability of the study.
Results and Discussion
The findings of the study and the analysis of the syntactic deviations committed by the participants are presented in this section. The
researcher adopted Dulay et al.’s (1982) Surface Strategy Taxonomy, which classified the syntactic deviations found into five (5):
omission, addition, misformation, misordering and blending.
Following the data collection, the participants committed a total of 1,162 syntactic deviations. The summary, classification, and
frequency of the syntactic deviations found are presented on the table below.
Table 1. Syntactic Deviations, its Classification and Frequency
Syntactic deviations Classification of No. of Percentage
Errors Occurrence
Omission of -s inflections Omission 381 32.78%
Omission of articles a, an, the
Omission of ‘be’ verbs
Omission of -ed or -d verb inflections
Omission of prepositions
Omission of demonstrative pronouns
Omission of modal auxiliary verbs
Omission of pronouns
Omission of ‘have’ verbs
Omission of certain verbs
Omission of certain nouns/subjects
Omission of relative pronouns
Omission of conjunctions
Omission of the gerund verbs or omission of -ing verb inflections
Omission of the ‘do’ verb
Omission of adverb suffixes
Addition of ‘do’ verbs Addition 280 24.10%
Addition of -s inflections
Addition of articles a, an, the
Addition of ‘be’ verbs
Addition of excessive nouns
Addition of conjunctions
Addition of excessive verbs
Addition of prepositions
Addition of relative pronouns
Addition of adverbs
Addition of -ed, -d verb inflections
Addition of pronouns
Addition of gerund verbs or addition of -ing verb inflections
Addition of ‘have’ verb
Addition of modal auxiliary verbs
Addition of adjectives
Misformation of the verb ‘be’ Misformation 327 28.14%
Misformation of the verb ‘do’
Misformation of the verb ‘have’
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Misformation of the modal auxiliary verb

Misformation of the article
Misformation of the pronouns
Misformation of nouns
Misformation of the tenses of verb
Misformation of the adverb
Misformation of the ‘superlative’ adjective
Misformation of the prepositions
Misformation of the ‘demonstrative’ adjective
Misformation of the Adjective of quantity
Misformation of a demonstrative adjective instead of a possessive
pronoun
Misformation of a certain verb instead of a ‘have’ verb
Misformation of an article instead of a pronoun
Misformation of an article instead of a preposition
Misformation of a noun instead of an adjective
Misformation of gerund verb instead of an infinitive verb
Misformation of the verb ‘have’ instead of a verb ‘be’
Misformation of a demonstrative adjective instead of an article
Misformation of the verb ‘do’ instead of a verb ‘have’
Misformation of a noun instead of a verb
Misformation of an adjective instead of a noun
Misformation of the modal auxiliary verb instead of a ‘be’ verb
Misformation of a preposition instead of a conjunction
Misformation of a pronoun instead of an article
Misformation of a ‘be’ verb instead of a ‘do’ verb
Misformation of a ‘be’ verb instead of a ‘have’ verb
Misformation of a ‘be’ verb instead of a modal auxiliary verb
Misformation of a certain verb instead of a noun
Misformation of a conjunction instead of a preposition
Misformation of a possessive pronoun instead of a ‘be’ verb
Misformation of a ‘have’ verb instead of a ‘do’ verb
Misordering of noun phrase and verbs phrase Misordering 24 2.07%
Choice of Prepositions Blending 150 12.91%
Choice of Conjunctions
Choice of Words (Diction)

The data presented above shows that the participants committed syntactic deviations due to omission, addition, misformation,
misordering and blending which also reflect the results of the previous studies on syntactic deviations.
An omission is a type of error which is characterized by the absence of an item that must appear in a well-formed utterance (Dulay et
al., 1982). The researcher found that the syntactic deviations of the participants classified as omission are the omission of -s inflections,
articles a, an, the ‘be’ verbs, -ed or -d verb inflections, prepositions, demonstrative pronouns, modal auxiliary verbs, pronouns, ‘have’
verbs, certain verbs, certain nouns/subjects, relative pronouns, conjunctions, gerund verbs or -ing verb inflections, ‘do’ verbs and
adverb suffixes. Additionally, omission is the category with the highest frequency or number of occurrences committed by the
participants which is 381 or 32.78% of the 1, 162 total syntactic deviations.
This result is similar to the study of Yalcin (2010) on the students’ descriptive text errors, which it was revealed that the highest
percentage of occurrence is error on omission. However, in the study conducted by Al-badawi (2013), substitution or misformation
was found to be more frequent than omission.
Benzigar and Vinothini (2021) explains that the errors in the learners' ESL writings suggest that they actually deleted critical
components from their writing, such as subjects, phrasal verbs, and prepositions. Learners develop their own system, which is much
simpler than the target language's system. As a result, the readers are concerned about the learners' poor language structure.
Moreover, the data above also revealed that the participants committed syntactic deviations due to misformation. Misformation errors
are characterized by the use of the wrong form of structure or morpheme (Dulay et al., 1982). The researcher found that the syntactic
deviations of the participants classified as a misformation are the misformation within the auxiliary verbs ‘be’, ‘do’, ‘have’, and modal
auxiliary verbs, misformation within articles, pronouns, nouns, tenses of verb, adverb, ‘superlative’ adjectives, prepositions,
‘demonstrative’ adjectives, adjective of quantity, misformation of a demonstrative adjective instead of a possessive pronoun, of a
certain verb instead of a ‘have’ verb, of an article instead of a pronoun, of an article instead of a preposition, of a noun instead of an
adjective, of gerund verb instead of an infinitive verb, of the verb ‘have’ instead of a verb ‘be’, of a demonstrative adjective instead of
an article, of the verb ‘do’ instead of a verb ‘have’, of a noun instead of a verb, of an adjective instead of a noun, of the modal auxiliary
verb instead of a ‘be’ verb, of a preposition instead of a conjunction, of a pronoun instead of an article, of a ‘be’ verb instead of a ‘do’

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verb, of a ‘be’ verb instead of a ‘have’ verb, of a ‘be’ verb instead of a modal auxiliary verb , of a certain verb instead of a noun, of a
conjunction instead of a preposition, of a possessive pronoun instead of a ‘be’ verb, and misformation of a ‘have’ verb instead of a ‘do’
verb.
Furthermore, misformation is the second highest frequency of syntactic deviations committed by the participants which is 327 or
28.14% of the 1, 162 total syntactic deviations. These findings of the present study are similar to the study of Gayo and Widodo (2018).
However, the aforementioned related study simplifies its misformation syntactic deviations into three which are the (1) passive voice;
misformation of verb and be for passive voice, (2) tense; misformation of verb tense, and (3) subject-verb agreement; misformation of
the concord between subject and verb.
A similar result of study conducted Talosa and Maguddayao (2018) explains that the most prevalent errors students commit along
syntactic structures are pronoun-antecedent agreement and faulty parallelism. Higher-year students are less prone to commit
grammatical errors. Furthermore, the frequency of grammatical errors in ESL writing is highly connected to the year level and writing
experience.
The data also shows that the participants committed syntactic deviations due to addition. An addition is a type of error which is
characterized by the presence of an item which must not appear in well-formed utterance (Dulay et al., 1982). It was revealed that the
participants committed addition of ‘do’ verbs, -s inflections, articles a, an, and the, addition of ‘be’ verbs, excessive nouns, conjunctions,
excessive verbs, prepositions, relative pronouns, adverbs, -ed, -d verb inflections, pronouns, gerund verbs or -ing verb inflections,
‘have’ verb, modal auxiliary verbs, and adjectives. Moreover, addition is the third highest frequency of syntactic deviations committed
by the participants which is 280 or 24.10% of the 1, 162 total syntactic deviations.
This finding is congruent with the result of the study of Sultan (2015), which the errors in the construction of prepositional phrases
were addition of unneeded propositions. However, it contradicts that of the study by Gayo and Widodo (2018), which addition errors
only occur at the morphological level. They do not occur at the syntactical level.
These addition errors might be attributed to a lack of understanding of rule restrictions. Furthermore, interlingual or mother tongue
influence might be implicated for these errors (Sultan, 2015). The erroneous assumption that "the" must be used anytime the writer
refers to a specific count noun, disregarding the fact that it is not used with proper nouns, can lead to the unnecessary insertion of
articles. Unfamiliarity with the structures of the target language also leads to the addition of syntactic features, leaving learners
incompetent when constructing complicated or compound sentence structures. As a result, repetitions are common in ESL writing. It
foreshadows the fact that the students have yet to master the principles for conjoining and embedding phrases. Learners try to write
simple phrases, but they are influenced negatively by partial exposure to complicated and compound sentences. Their language
difficulties would be complicated by phrases, sentences, and complex structures, and their written outputs would be evaluated for
repetitions (Benzigar & Vinothini, 2021).
The researcher also found that the participants committed syntactic deviations due to blending. Blending is sometimes called the
contamination or cross association or hybridization error (James, 2013). It was revealed that the participants committed blending errors
in preposition choice, conjunction choice and diction. Additionally, blending is the fourth highest frequency of syntactic deviations
committed by the participants which is 150 or 12.91% of the 1, 162 total syntactic deviations.
This result is similar with the study of Tati and Gedion (2017), which the syntactic deviations under blending were due to the learners’
lack of grammatical knowledge, lack of vocabulary knowledge and lexical choice. However, the finding contradicts that of the study
by Hafiz (2018), which language interference, nonseriousness and less concentration of learners result to errors and mistakes in their
writings.
Due to language interference, prepositions, choice of words, prepositions and conjunctions are used incorrectly. Translations of these
lexical elements from the native language to the target language are usually not possible. As a result, learners either omit the lexical
element or use a wrong one which is called as blending (Hafiz, 2018).
The data also reveals that the participants committed syntactic deviations due to misordering. These types of errors are characterized
by the incorrect placement of morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance (Dulay et al., 1982). The researcher found that the
participants misordered the noun phrase and verb phrase in some sentences. However, among the five classifications of syntactic
deviations, misordering is the least frequent error committed by the participants which is only 24 or 2.07% of the 1, 162 total syntactic
deviations.
The result is consistent with those of Benzigar and Vinothini (2021), who found that mistakes in word order are caused by incorrect
placement of adverbials, adjectival errors, subject and verb misplacement, and noun and qualifying phrase interchange. Furthermore,
Gayo and Widodo (2018) added that Misordering also encompasses the passive voice, tense, noun phrase, auxiliary, subject-verb
agreement, and determiner. Interlingual or first language interference, as well as intralingual influences, are the two main causes of
these mistakes.
The learner's lack of understanding of the structure of the English language has a detrimental impact on his ability to construct sentences
with incorrect word order. As a result of these factors, the student is unable to write accurate sentences, and the phrases are frequently
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misread by the readers. Learners frequently add determiners to mother language patterns such as 'some, all, and our.' Learners'
insufficient grasp of the target language elements is one of the reasons of these mistakes (Benzigar & Vinothini, 2021).
Conclusions
The findings revealed that the participants of this study have committed all five types of syntactic deviations from Dulay et al.’s (1982)
Surface Strategy Taxonomy which are Omission, Addition, Misformation, Misordering and Blending. The participants indeed omitted
and added syntactical items that must and must not appear in a well-formed utterance; used the wrong form of structure or morpheme;
committed incorrect placement of morpheme or group of morphemes in an utterance; and incorrectly blended the syntactical items.
In addition, the participants of this study have committed the most frequent error under the omission category. The following are the
most frequent syntactic deviations found. Omission of -s inflections, articles a, an, the, ‘be’ verbs, -ed or -d verb inflections,
prepositions, demonstrative pronouns, modal auxiliary verbs, pronouns, ‘have’ verbs, certain verbs, certain nouns/subjects, relative
pronouns, conjunctions, gerund verbs or -ing verb inflections, ‘do’ verbs and adverb suffixes.
It can be concluded that the participants have not fully grasped one of the qualities of having good communication skills in this 21st
Century world which is on the proper application of the conventions of syntax. The participants have problems understanding the
concepts of subject-verb agreement, tenses of verbs, and awareness on the basic parts of speech. Hence, awareness of syntactical
conventions is indeed a fundamental skill in writing and knowledge on the fundamental concepts of syntax is a prerequisite in learning
the complicated rules of syntax.
Based on the findings of the study, it is recommended that the concerned institution should provide intervention programs for students
with problems in writing, specifically on syntactical awareness. It is recommended that the institution should offer a remediation
program for students with problems understanding the basic concepts of syntax such as the subject-verb agreement, tenses of verbs,
and the basic parts of speech. The English teachers of the participants of this study should reflect on which teaching strategies to use
as remediation to combat against the students’ difficulty on sentence construction and should reflect on which learning competencies
to focus more considering the needs of the students. The students should be taught thoroughly on the basic and complicated rules of
syntax specifically on subject-verb agreement, tenses of verbs, and the basic parts of speech and go through a series of practices in
order to improve their performance in writing. And for the other researchers, to study the problems of students in writing, especially
on syntax and the causes of these frequent syntactic deviations committed by the students.
References
Abdelmohsen, M. M. (2022). Arab EFL learners’ writing errors: A contrastive error analysis study. British Journal of English Language
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Affiliations and Corresponding Information
Ernie Joy T. Pacomios
Central Mindanao University – Philippines

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