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Preposition Errors in ESL Writings
Mohammad Moradi KOWSAR INSTITUTE
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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
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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
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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
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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.”
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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]
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Kowsar Corp.
Here are some of the more common prepositions:
Aaboardaboutaboveacrossafteragainstalongalongsideamidamongamongstaroundasasideastrideatatop
Bbarringbeforebehindbelowbeneathbesidebesidesbetweenbeyondbutby CcircaconcerningconsideringDdespitedownduringEexceptexceptingexcluding
FfailingfollowingforfromIinincludinginsideintoLlikeMminusNnearnearbynextnotwithstanding
OofoffonontooppositeoutsideoverPpastperplusRregardingroundSsavesince
TthanthroughthroughouttilltimestotowardtowardsUunderunderneath unlikeuntiluntoupuponVversusviaWwithwithinwithoutworth
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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:
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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%
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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…
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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