LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Grammar
1. Definition of Grammar
Every language has its own grammar. Grammar has an ambiguous meaning. There is no fixed definition of grammar. Many experts define grammar differently. Swan (1987: xvi) says that grammar is the rules that say how words change to show different meaning, and how they are combined into sentences. Harmer (2007: 4) defines grammar as the study and practice of the rules by which words change the forms and are combined into sentences. Thornbury (1991: 1) defines grammar as a description of the rules that govern how the language‟s sentences are formed. Brown (2001: 362) states that grammar is the
system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence.
Based on the previous definitions, it can be concluded that grammar is a set of rules and pattern in forming words into sentences. Although the definition of grammar is different, but the aim basically equal that is how sentence of language are formed accurately. In simple way, grammar is a description of how the elements of language systemically combine into sentence or organize to form meaning.
2. The Importance of Learning Grammar
Grammar consists of rules or principles that can help students to identify a correct sentence. Grammar is a set of rules by which people can speak and write. These rules are not always understood consciously because the rules we refer to are those hardly anyone ever think about, but which allow people to use their language easily and naturally most of time (Cook, and Suter, 1980: 10).
Grammar is very important element when we study English. Because English grammar is different from Indonesian grammar. Kamil (1982: 7) says, “English structure is different from Indonesian structure and to overcome this
difficulty, students must understand to the English structure”. So, the message that we want to convey will be clearer.
Grammar is important to be learned, because with grammar people can convey the message clearly. When people do not master grammar well, they will feel confused when they want to arrange words into sentence. For example: when someone wants to say or write “Dia memberikan banyak uang” in English, he may say or write “He was given much money or he is given much money”. That
B. Simple Past Tense
1. Definition of Simple Past Tense
According to Azar (1999: 27) the simple past indicates that an activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past. Swan (1987: 469) states that simple past tense is the most often used to talk about the past. Mc. Graw (2003: 216) states that simple past tense is used to indicate that something happened at a specific time in the past.
2. The Pattern of Simple Past Tense a. Pattern with full verb
1) Affirmative : S + V2 + (object/adverb)
Examples:
Positive
S V2 (Object, Adverb)
Columbus discovered American continent
RA Kartini Wrote habis gelap terbitlah terang book Thomas Alva Edison invented Electricity
2) Negative : S + did not + V1 + (object/adverb)
play guitar last week
We watch television last night
Diva finish work early
Columbus discover American continent?
RA Kartini write habis gelap terbitlah terang book?
Thomas Alva E invent electricity?
America bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end world war II?
4) Asking Subject : Who/what etc. + V2 + (object/adverb)? Examples:
WHO/WHAT etc. V2 Object, Adverb
Who wrote this letter?
What caused the Diponegoro war?
How many students came to the farewell party? Which system gave more benefit?
Which team won the last world cup?
5) Asking other than subject : QW + did + S + V1? Examples:
QW Did S V1
When Did Hitler die?
What Did she cook?
Why Did you listen?
Where Did I go?
1) Pattern with “be”
a. Positive : She/he/it/Dina + was + Complement
They/we/you + were + Complement
Positive
S Was/Were Complement
She
Was
very tired last night
Diva here ten minutes ago
Ahmad Dahlan the founder of Muhammadiyah We
S Was/Were not Complement
She
was not
very tired last night
Diva here ten minutes ago
Amien Rais the founder of Muhammadiyah
We
were not in Japan last year
You late yesterday
c. Interrogative : Was + she/he/it + complement?
Were + they/we/you + complement?
d. WH questions with “be” :
what/why/where/who/when/how + was/were + S + complement?
Examples:
QW Was/Were S Complement
Why was I sleepy?
Where were you?
How was she?
When were they at work?
3. The Uses of Simple Past Tense
There are at least 4 usages of simple past tense:
a. To express the complete action in the past
Simple past tense is used to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past.
Interrogative
Was/Were S Complement
Was
She very tired last night? Diva here ten minutes ago?
Ahmad Dahlan the founder of Muhammadiyah?
Were We in Japan last year?
Examples:
1) I saw a movie yesterday. 2) I didn‟t see a movie last night. 3) Last month, I traveled to Korea. 4) Last week, I didn‟t travel to London. b. To express a series of complete actions.
We use the simple past tense to list a series of completed actions in the past. The actions happen 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th…..
Examples:
1) I finished study, walked to the beach, and found a nice place to swim. 2) She arrived from the airport at 8:00, checked into the hotel at 9:00,
and met the others at 10:00. c. To express single duration in the past
Simple past tense can also be used to describe a habit, which stop in the past. It can have the same meaning as “used to”. To make it clear
when talk about a habit, it can be used expressions like “always, often, usually, never, ….when I was younger” in the sentence.
Examples:
1) I studied English when I was child. 2) She often played the guitar.
d. The adverb of Simple Past Tense
tense with the other adverb or may phrase that show us that it happen in the past.
4. Regular and Irregular Past Verbs
There are two past verb forms, namely regular past verb and irregular past verb.
a. Regular verb
Regular verb is changeable verb which depends on tense form; and the changing of verb is regularly (Mas‟ud, 1992: 36) . Regular past tense verb is formed by adding d, ed, or ied.
Examples:
Infinitive Past tense Past participle
Hope Hoped hoped
Add Added added
Help Helped helped
Advise Advised advised
Generally, the regular ending for the simple past tense, for all persons is = -ed. If the verb already ends in -e, we just add -d. There are some rules dealing with changing of regular verb form (Mas‟ud, 1992:
36) which is made from the simple forms in the following ways:
2) When one syllable verb end in a single consonant (expect c, w, x, or y) preceded by a single vowel. The final consonant is doubled and = ed is added, such as plan becomes planned, stop becomes stopped. To c ending verbs, we just add k before the suffix, for example, picnic becomes picnicked, panic becomes panicked.
3) When the verb of more than one syllable ends in a single vowel, the final consonant is doubled when the final syllable is stressed, for example, omit becomes omitted, occur becomes occurred. The final consonant is not doubled when the final syllable is unstressed, for example, visit becomes visited, listen becomes listened.
4) When the simple form of a verb ends in y preceded by a consonant, the y is changed into I and ed is added, for example, try becomes tried, hurry becomes hurried.
b. Irregular verb
Irregular verb is verb which has the same function as regular verb, but this changing of verb is not regular (Mas‟ud, 1992: 118). The learner have to memorize the irregular past tense verb.
Examples:
Infinitive Past tense Past participle
Break Broke broken
Begin Began begun
Awake Awoke awoke
To facilitate memories, the change of irregular forms are presented in the following groups:
a. Verbs with no special past tense forms
The simple forms are used to express both present and past events, such as: bid, cost, cut, let, put, set, hurt, spread, split.
b. Final consonant change only the past forms end t, for example:
c. Vowel and consonant change.
All the following past forms rhyme though the spelling differs. Note which two are spelled with a.
e. Vowel change /i/ to /a/
Simple Past
Dig Dug
Win Won
Stick Stuck
f. Vowel change /I/, /ai/, to /au/
Simple Past
Bind Bound
Find Found
Wind Wound
g. Miscellaneous vowel change, for example:
h. Other irregular past forms, for example, lay becomes laid, pay becomes paid.
C. Error and Mistake
A mistake refers to a performance, it can be corrected directly because the learner knows about that and it is not permanent. It happens when the learner
Simple Past Come Came
Run Ran
forgets the language system because of the body condition that can be caused by illness, nervousness, or anxiety (Tarigan, 1995: 75).
On the other hand, errors reveal a portion of learner‟s competence in the target language. It happens because lack of competence. The learner do not understood the language system. An error is consistent and systematic; it can be permanent if there is no effort from the learner itself to correct it.
The characteristic that distinguish between mistake and error are: mistake does not happen on purpose and can be corrected easily by the speaker (Tarigan, 1995: 76), while, error can not be corrected easily and quickly because the speaker does not realize that he or she made an error.
To make it clear, Tarigan (1995: 76) summarizes the differences between error and mistake into the following table:
The Comparison Between Error and Mistake
No Categories Errors Mistakes
1 Source competence performance
2 Characteristic systematic not systematic
3 Duration long Short
4 Language system not mastered mastered
5 Result deviation not deviation
6 Repair
teacher, exercise, remedial teaching, etc.
D. Error Analysis
Learning a language is like any other subject learning and it is possible to make errors and mistakes. The problems on error will be faced by learner should be observed, analyzed, and classified to find out the solution of this problem. “Error analysis is a procedure generally used by researcher and language teacher
including collecting sample, identifying errors in its sample, describing the errors, classifying the errors based on the reason, and giving evaluation about erroneous level (Ellis in Tarigan, 1995: 68).”
According to Tarigan (1995: 85) there are two types of error, namely:
1. Interlingual errors
Interlingual error is error which is caused by the interference of the first language to the target language being learned, such as: error in phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and culture. For example: I had a book red. In this sentence, it is included in interlingual errors because the use of
Indonesian construction for expressing elliptic structure. Then, the correct sentence is I had a red book.
2. Intralingual errors
attempt to create language based on their hypothesis about the language system they are learning. For example: “I do not know why did he go” the correct answer is “I did not know why did he go”. Richard (1985: 174)
defines that systematic intra lingual error involves: a. Overgeneralization
It happens whenever the students explain a norm of the target language past tense not in the right position, but to the wrong language item. Students tend to make the same mistakes through an overgeneralization. For example: “He runs fastly”. In this sentence, the learner produces an error because he/she generalizes that adverbs of manner must always be formed by adding 'ly' to the adjectives.
b. Ignorance of rule restrictions
In this case the students usually make mistakes by dropping or adding unnecessary omission and addition. It has a close relationship with overgeneralization state above that errors occurred because the students‟ failure in observing the retraction the existing structure. For example: “The man whom I saw him yesterday”. The student does not
know that it is impossible to mention the person referred to by the relative pronoun by another pronoun as well.
c. Incomplete application of rules
procedure acceptable utterances. For example: “He goes to school?”, The students may use a statement for a question by adding a question mark at the end of the sentence.
d. False concept hypothesis
It happens whenever the students have wrong concept or system of language. The students make error which is caused by misconception of the target language system. For example: “He is too lazy”, They use the present tense instead of the present continuous tense or the other way round. This might be caused by learners not paying much attention to the difference between items. They consider too and very are the same as well as go and come, etc.
