ABSTRACT: The main thrust of the study was to assess Errors of the Usages of English Adjectival Phrases by Students. The sampling for the study consisted of 150 respondents drawn from some selected secondary schools in the above area. The instrument was a well structured questionnaire which was designed to provide information on student’s usages of adjectival phrase. In analyzing the data, simple percentage was used.
The findings revealed that students cannot easily identify or differentiate adjectival from adverbs as their teachers do not frequently bring this to their knowledge during the course of instruction. Finally recommendation was made such as: The school libraries should be stocked with textbooks and Journals on the various usages on adjectival phrases to improve students’ performance and encourage their learning interest.
Errors of the Usages of English Adjectival Phrases by Students
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
An adjectival phrase as a type of phrase is a group of words that plays the role of an adjective in a sentence. It usually has a single adjective as its head, to which modifies and complements maybe added. Adjective can be modifies by a preceding adverb or adverb phrase, as in very warm, truly imposing, etc. Some can also be preceded by a noun or quantitative phrase, as in fat- free, two meter long.
There are so many errors and mistaken forms of other phrases which students usually take it to be adjectival phrases, for the fact that they do not understand the concept of adjective and adjectival phrases English adjectives as with other word classes cannot in general be identified as such by their form although many of them are formed from nouns or other words by the addition of a suffix such as –al (habitual), -ful (blissful), -ic (atomic),
-ish (impish, youngish), -ous (hazardous), etc, or from other adjectives using a prefix: disloyal, irredeemable, unforeseen, overtired. The most important thing is to note that adjectives particularly those that are longer and less common, do not have inflected comparative and superlative forms.
According to Aniekan Nyarks (2012), Adjectival phrase is seen as a prepositional phrase which performs the duty of modifying or limiting the definition of nouns or pronouns. E.g.
i That teacher in the class gave us permission.
ii. We entered the room near the laboratory.
According to the illustration above, the prepositional phrase “in the class” is an adjectival phrase because it describes a particular teacher the speaker referred to. In example (ii) the adjectival phrase “neat the laboratory” describes a specific room (noun) the speaker is talking about. Since a phrase itself is a group of words without a finite verb but it functions as a part of sentence, Adjectival phrase that tells us something about the noun it is modifying. The head (principal) word in an adjectival phrase will be an adjective. In the example below, the adjectival phrase is underlined and the head word (i.e. the adjective) is in bold. Briton, L (2000).
i The nearby hotel offers cheap but comfortable rooms (the head adjective starts the adjectival phrase).
ii These are unbelievably expensive shoes.
(the head adjective ends the adjectival phrase).
iii Deborah was fairly bored with you.
(the head adjective is the middle of the adjectival phrase).
Like a normal adjective, an adjectival phrase can be used before the noun it is modifying.
(Like in the first two examples above) or after the noun it is modifying (like in the last example).
Errors of the Usages of English Adjectival Phrases by Students
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Generally, it has been observed that quite a number of seminar and conference papers have been presented on, Errors of the usages of English Adjectival phases but students still fail to comprehend the concept of phrases and adjectival phrase in particular. Some students believe that adjectival phrases can only be used attributively while some think it can only be used predicatively. this misconceptions in the wages of this type of phrase has prompted researchers to seek for a way to remedy this erroneous usages of the adjectival phrases in English language.
Identifying of adjectival phrases in English sentences has been a major problem to students in the study area, it is against this background that the usages of English Adjectival phrases by SS1 Students becomes imperative.
