Preposition Errors in ESL Writings

Mohammad Moradi KOWSAR INSTITUTE

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

Introduction

• Increasing need for tools for instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL)

• Preposition usage is one of the most difficult aspects of English for non-native speakers – [Dalgish ’85] – 18% of sentences from ESL essays

contain a preposition error– [Joel Tetreault] : 8-10% of all prepositions in TOEFL

essays are used incorrectly

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

ESL Testing Corpus

• Collection of randomly selected TOEFL essays by native speakers of Chinese, Japanese and Russian

• 8192 prepositions total (5585 sentences)• Error annotation reliability between two

human raters:– Agreement = 0.926– Kappa = 0.599

Method Performance[Eeg-Olofsson et al. ’03]

Handcrafted rules for Swedish learners

11/40 prepositions correct

[Izumi et al. ’03, ’04] ME model to classify 13 error types

25% precision

7% recall

[Lee & Seneff ‘06] Stochastic model on restricted domain

80% precision

77% recall

[De Felice & Pullman ’08]

Maxent model

(9 prep’s)

~57% precision

~11% recall

[Gamon et al. ’08] LM + decision trees

(12 prep’s)

80% precision

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

Why are prepositions hard to master?

• Prepositions perform so many complex roles– Preposition choice in an adjunct is constrained

by its object (“on Friday”, “at noon”)– Prepositions are used to mark the arguments of

a predicate (“fond of beer.”)– Phrasal Verbs (“give in to their demands.”)

• “give in” “acquiesce, surrender”– Multiple prepositions can appear in the same

context• “…the force of gravity causes the sap to move

_____ the underside of the stem.”

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

Features

• Prepositions are influenced by:– Words in the local context, and how they interact

with each other (lexical)– Syntactic structure of context– Semantic interpretation

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

What to do??• Develop a training set of error-annotated ESL

essays (millions of examples?):– Too labor intensive to be practical

• Alternative:– Train on millions of examples of proper usage

• Determining how “close to correct” writer’s preposition is

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

Books

• The most reliable and trusted way is to use grammar books and Dictionaries like

• Practical English Usage• A-Z of Correct English• Common Mistakes In English• Oxfords advanced dictionary• Webster's

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

Google-Ngram Features• Typical way that non-native speakers check if usage is correct:– “Google” the phrase and alternatives

• Created a fast-access Oracle database from the POS-tagged Google N-gram corpus

• Queries provided frequency data for the +Combo features

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

Google Features

• Adding Google features had minimal impact• Using solely Google features (or counts) as a

classifier: ~45% accuracy on native text• Disclaimer: very naïve implementation

Dr. M. Moradi Kowsar Corp.

MEDLINE

• Use search tags to see whether this phrase has been used in over 20 millions of indexed articles in Medline

• But it may has mistakes due to non-native journals

• Better to use advanced search to limit your search language

• EX:• Regarding to[tw]

Kowsar Corp.

Here are some of the more common prepositions:

Aaboardaboutaboveacrossafteragainstalongalongsideamidamongamongstaroundasasideastrideatatop

Bbarringbeforebehindbelowbeneathbesidebesidesbetweenbeyondbutby CcircaconcerningconsideringDdespitedownduringEexceptexceptingexcluding

FfailingfollowingforfromIinincludinginsideintoLlikeMminusNnearnearbynextnotwithstanding

OofoffonontooppositeoutsideoverPpastperplusRregardingroundSsavesince

TthanthroughthroughouttilltimestotowardtowardsUunderunderneath unlikeuntiluntoupuponVversusviaWwithwithinwithoutworth

according toaccording to

by way ofby way of

instead ofinstead of

ahead ofahead of

in addition toin addition to

on account of on account of

apart fromapart from

in front ofin front of

In place ofIn place of

with respect towith respect to

because ofbecause of

in spite of in spite of 

by means ofby means of

up onup on

  aside fromaside from

prior toprior to

Here are some compound prepositions:

Common Preposition ConfusionsWriter’s Prep Rater’s Prep Frequency

to null 9.5%

of null 7.3%

in at 7.1%

to for 4.6%

in null 3.2%

of for 3.1%

in on 3.1%

By and with

By is used to refer to the doer of an action; with is used to refer to the instrument with which the action is done.Ex: It is done by Peterson in 1998.Ex: It was done with ELISA method.

By is used to show the latest time at which an action will be finished. So it is usually used with the future tenses.I shall be leaving by 6 o' clock.I hope to finish the work by the end of this year.

On, in, at and by (time) While speaking about time at indicates an exact point of timeon a more general point of timeand in a period of time.I shall be there at 4 pm.We set out at dawn.I was born on May 26.The postman brought this letter in the morning.I shall visit them in summer.It is very hot in the day and quite cold at night.(Note that 'at night' is an exception to this rule)

Beside and besides

 Beside means ‘by the side of’ and besides means ‘in addition to’.The house was beside the river. (= by the side of the river)He stood beside me. (= by my side)He plays tennis besides (in addition to) basketball and football.Besides (in addition to) being a good speaker, he is also an excellent actor.

Examples

aim at, not on 

The estimated time (for) of development

alpha-fetoprotein is still recommended to compliment

ultrasound (for) in the surveillance of HCC.

A total of 1132 female sand flies (from) due to two

species….

are attributed (to)with approximately 15%...

The authors would like to thank (null) from…

these tests must depend (on) to careful evaluation

In order (to) for detecting…

Apart (from) of their affinity …

It accounts (for) null more than 10% of …..

in most instances leads (to) null the increase of infection

and being genetically prone (to) for alpha-1 antitrypsin

deficiency