A Syntax-Based Analysis of the Aspects of Deviation in the Narrative Writings of Students of the Ritman University, Ikot Ekpene: The Syntactic-Verbal Factor
Keywords:
Syntactic-Verbal Factor, Ritman University, Narrative Writings, DeviationAbstract
This paper takes a look at a syntax-based analysis of the Aspects of Deviation in the Narrative
Writings of Students of the Ritman University, Ikot Ekpene: The Syntactic-Verbal Factor. It
examines the syntactic deviation, ungrammaticality, and unacceptable constructions associated
with the verb, one of the classified parts of speech across all languages. Cases of verb abuse by
students of higher institutions in Nigeria have continued to rise, and new errors in communication
patterns are observed daily in the written essays of university undergraduates. This study aims at
discovering the factors that are responsible for deviations syntactically. This study is within the
theoretical frameworks of Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis approaches to seek similarities
and the differences inherent in the students’ source and target languages and account for the
reasons behind such deviations. Verb factor is a cause of syntactic breakdown in the students’
writings. Based on this, there is the need for teachers to study the verb-related errors made by their
students in a much more comprehensive way to fill the gaps inherent in this direction.
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