Contoh Proposal Skripsi II

Research Proposal

The Structure of Three-Argument Verbs Uttered by Indonesian Learners of ICNALE as the Source of the Data

1. Background of the Study

In English, there are certain verbs which can be called as double-object verbs, because these verbs have two nouns which function as object; they are direct object and indirect object. According to Moravcsik (2006: 231), double-object verbs mean a transfer of an object that the recipient will become prossessor. Thus, as sample, he mentioned that we can bake somebody a cake, but not *cut somebody a cake. From this sample, we can see that there are certain patterns for certain verbs that are understood by people. However, there are lack of explanation about the structure in English lesson, so Moravcsik assumed that native English know the structure from their ‘nature’ or innate capacity and ‘nurture’ or the effect of their environment. However, there are many other people who don’t know the correct structure for double-object verb, especially the non-native English. Therefore, this paper will discuss further about the structure of the double-object verbs used by Indonesians who learn English to see their understanding of English structure.

Since all double-object verbs need two objects and subject in its structure, the verbs need three nouns in making a grammatical sentence. Mark Newson (2006:15) stated that the words which functions as the noun in a sentence is called arguments, so in other words the construction of double-object verb can also be called a three-argument verbs. As the sample of the sentence Jessica slept, we have ‘sleeping’ event that involve a person named Jessica who was doing the sleeping, and action ‘sleeping’ can only involve one argument which is Jessica as the noun of the subject.

2. Research Questions

       There are two research questions of the study:  

1)      How are the structures of three-argument verbs uttered by Indonesians who learn English on ICNALE?

2)      How are the possible constituent structures of clauses containing three-argument verbs described in the X-bar theory?

3. Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of the study is answering the research questions; it is to investigate the structures containing three-argument verbs occur in the Indonesian utterances. The structure will be analyzed grammatically as well as the collocation and will be described in Phrase Structure Three with X-bar theory. This explanation hopefully can be a reference for English learners to know about the grammatical structure of double-object verbs.

4. Scope of the Study

       The object of the research will focus on the double-object verbs uttered by Indonesians who learn English. Therefore, the writers will list the double-object verbs and analyze the double-object verbs contained in the sentences. The object is limited about the three-argument verb because the data is a large data so there will be a lot of analysis for each structure of the verbs. The analysis will observe the structures of sentences containing double-object verb, their phrase structure threes, and the collocation for each verb.

5. Previous Studies

There are some researches related to this topic that become the references for this study. The first is a thesis written by Shi-Ching Olivia Lam (2008). In the research entitled “Object Functions and the Syntax of Double Object Constructions in Lexical Functional Grammar”, she made a broad research from grammatical relation to the syntax of double-object construction. She also investigated the arguments (semantic ditransitivity) and phrase structure trees using X-bar theory. However, her object is broad and it is not only English but across languages, so it emphasizes the theories instead of the object languages. Therefore, this research will focus the discussion on English to avoid plagiarism from the previous one.

The second research entitled “Verb Semantics and Double Object Constructions” is written by Dorothee Beermann. She conducted her research about syntactic pattern and semantic meaning of double object constructions in German. On her research, she analyzed the structure with concept which represent the ‘core-meaning of ditransitive verbs’, however, she did not explain the structure with phrase structure trees. Therefore, this research will fill the gap with explaining the data using both argument and phrase structure trees.

Fahrina Galuh (2013) investigated the phrase structures uttered by pre-school children. On her thesis entitled “The Indonesian Language Used by Pre-School Children: A Study on the Syntax”, she collected the data from six pre-school children to see their structure of speaking. Her study was supported with X-bar theory to see the phrase structure, but on her analysis she did not make argument for the verbs uttered.

Based on the three previous researches, there are spaces that can be filled in this research such as focusing the object of the research and using other theories. The writers will also describe the structures with argument and Phrase Structure Tree (PST) with X-bar theory to make more complete research. In addition, unlike the previous studies, this research will focus discussion on English uttered by certain people as the object of the research.

6. Underlying Theories

6.1. Predicates and Arguments

According to Croft and Cruse (2004: 269), “the relations between parts of a construction are all in terms of predicate-argument relation”. Syntactically, a predicate requires one or more arguments in specific grammatical functions to it, and arguments are related to the predicate by a grammatical function. For example in Jane sings, sing requires argument functions as subject and Jane is the subject of sings. Newson, et al (2006:15) stated that predicate is a word which functions as verb and arguments are words which functions as the nouns.

From the definitions above, it can be concluded that predicate is a verb in a sentence and arguments are nouns needed by the predicate. However, each verb need different amount of arguments in making a correct sentence. The following are example of some predicates and arguments:

a)      Thomas is tall

b)      Nancy placed her name on the list

In a) the predicate describes a state of affairs of ‘being tall’ and it needs one argument as the subject, Thomas. On the second sentence, there is a ‘placing’ event described and it involves three things: Nancy as the subject, her name as something that gets placed, and on the list as the place information. Since place needs three arguments, it is a three-place predicate, or in grammar term it is called double-object verb.

6.1.1. Double-object Verbs

According to S.P. Corder on his journal entitled “Double-Object Verbs in English”, double-object verbs are described as verbs which take two objects, a direct and an indirect object. A direct object is thing or person that is affected by the action of the verb, while indirect object refers to human or animate things that receives or is affected by the direct object. The indirect object always needs a direct object and always comes before it, but if it appears after the direct object, it will need preposition. In other words, if there are two objects on one sentence, they must be direct and indirect object; however, if there is only one object in a sentence, then it must be a direct object.

For example in the sentence They gave us some books, the direct object is some books which comes after the indirect object. However, if the sentence is switched, it can become They gave some books to us. In the second structure, the direct object comes directly after the verb, and as the result there is addition of preposition before the indirect object.

In English, there are some verbs that can be followed by both direct and indirect object. Here are the list of double-object verbs that has been collected by the writer: buy, give, send, lend, show, make, tell, bring, throw, write, deliver, promise, owe, offer, teach, award, pass, feed, pay, grant, mail, sell, post, and read.

The argument that has been mentioned before (Newson, et al, 2006:15) is also determined by the meaning of predicate, therefore the meaning of a verb is a lexical property. The theta-grid or thematic roles is part of the lexical entry. The following are ʘ-roles the predicate has its theta-grid:

sleep      ʘ-grid: <agent>
tall         ʘ-grid: <theme>
place      ʘ-grid: <agent, patient, location>

Based on the previous samples, Jessica slept only needs one argument functions as subject. It is called agent because Jessica performs an ‘sleeping’ action. On the sentence Thomas is tall, its predicate needs one argument function as subject, but the role is called theme because being tall is something true at the present time. On the sentence Nancy placed her name on the list, there are three arguments needed. The first one the subject, Nancy; it is called agent because Nancy is the one who performs as an action. Then the second argument is her name which has role as patient because it is something which is acted upon. The last argument, on the list, has role as location because it contains information about location.

Newson, et al (2006: 52) defined the theta roles or lexical entries as the following:
Agent:  the  participant  who  deliberately  initiates  the  action  denoted  by  the   
            verb (usually animate).

Theme: the participant (animate or inanimate) moved by the action.

Patient: an affected participant (animate or inanimate) undergoing the action
             (the roles ‘theme’ and ‘patient’ are often collapsed).

Experiencer:  the  participant  (animate  or  inanimate)  that  experiences  some

                    (psychological, emotional, etc.) state.

Beneficiary/Benefactive: the participant that gains by the action denoted by the
                                    verb.

Goal: the participant towards which the activity is directed.

Source: the place from which something is moved as a result of the action.

Location: the place in which the action or state denoted by the verb is situated.

Propositional: clausal arguments have the propositional theta role.

6.2. X-bar theory

X-bar theory was first proposed by Noam Chomsky (1970) and it is still exist until present. According to Pieter Seuren (2004: 164) who cited from Chomsky (1995:172), the concept of X-bar theory is fundamental and minimalist. It will also state the crucial properties and relations in simple way. The X-bar is a method of sentence analysis that divides the sentence into constituents, but it has some rules as follows:

a.  X’  à   X   YP

b.  XP à   YP  X’

c.  Xⁿ  à  Xⁿ,   Y/YP

            The X and Y can be any categories such as nouns, verbs, prepositions, determiners, etc. The first rule that is called complement rules that introduces the structural position for the complement. The X’ has two immediate constituents; they are X which is the head of the phrase and YP is the complement.

The second rule or specifier rule introduces a structural position called the specifier. There are two immediate constituents of the phrase. The specifier, a phrase of any category, precedes the X’, the constituent just discussed containing the head and the complement (Newson, et al, 2006: 88). The third rule introduces a position of phrase called adjunct. An adjunct is phrase or clause which can be removed without making the sentence grammatically wrong or its existence is optional.

7. Research Method

7.1. Type of Research

       In this research, the writer conducts descriptive qualitative approach since the data that will be used are in form of text and the result will be described systematically in text as well. Cresswell (2003: 18) stated that a qualitative approach is one in which the inquirer often makes knowledge claims based primarily on constructivist perspectives or participatory perspectives or both. In this type of research, the researcher collects emerging data with the primary intent of developing themes from the data. In addition, the writer will also use corpus linguistic as method to analyze the three-argument verbs occurrence.

7.2. Data and Sources

Data consist of linguistic unit and its context. The linguistic unit can be phonemes, morphemes, lexemes words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and meaning. In this research, the data that will be analyzed are clauses containing double-object verbs with three-place predicate. The sources of this research will be the text of Indonesian college students who learn English. The text is a transcription of Indonesian students’ speaking which contained on corpus website called ICNALE (The International Corpus Network of Asian Learner English). The spoken data that will be analyzed contain of four English proficiency levels; they are A2, B1_1, B1_2, and B2+. The amounts of each category are equal, except the highest one (B2+) that only contains 12 files. Total numbers of text transcription of the four levels are 400 files that have been taken from Indonesian college students. The website can be accessed at http://language.sakura.ne.jp/icnale/.

7.2. Population, Sample & Sampling Technique

According to Ary, et al (2009:148), population is all unit of analysis such as class of people, events or objects. In this case, the population is the whole sentences of Indonesian learners on ICNALE data which consist of 400 files. On the other hand, sample is the linguistic unit that will be analyzed and it must represent the population. The sample of this research will be the clauses containing double-object verbs which have three-place predicate of Indonesian learners’ speaking.

In order to get the sample, the writer will use purposive sampling technique; it is the technique to get the data by choosing it purposively. The writer chooses this technique because in analyzing the data, the writer will purposely choose the clause containing double-object verbs which have three or more arguments.

7.3. Data Collection Method

The method used in this research is documentation method since the data analyzed are in written form. In order to get the data, the writer first must enter to the ICNALE website to download the data. The writer selects to download the file “ICNALE_SW_1.0_Texts” which contains both spoken and written text from several countries. After downloading the file, the writer must send email to the website founder to get the keyword to open the file. The data downloaded contain spoken and written texts from EFL (China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan), ESL (Hongkong, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapote), and ENL (U.S.A, U.K, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). However, since this research focus on Indonesian speaking, the writer will analyze the spoken text of Indonesian only.

7.4. Data Analyzing Method

The method of analyzing data used in this research is distributional method (metode agih). Sudaryanto (1993: 15) stated that distributional method uses the language itself as the instrument. In other words, this study will use distributional method because the instrument of this research is the language itself which is English. The technique used in analyzing the data is segmenting immediate constituents technique. The writer chooses this technique because this technique divides the language elements to get the linguistic form that is needed.

In analyzing the data, the writer will also use other tools to help the analysis, such as AntConc 3.4.3w and online Oxford collocation dictionary. AntConc is a software corpus analysis toolkit for concordancing and text analysis. In application, this program will be used to search the token, in this case double-object verbs. After list of the sentences containing the verbs appear, the writer then will analyzed the structure. The online Oxford collocation dictionary is used to see the correct preposition of the verbs.

8. Sample of Analysis

As the sample of analysis, the writer has analyzed one double-object verb which has three or more argument in its sentences. The sentences appeared in concordance of AntConc will be observed its argument and described in phrase structure tree of each similar structure.

The first double-object verb that will be analyzed is tell. Based on the concordance, the verb appears four times of the whole texts. However, there are only three sentences that will be analyzed, because one of them is not a three-place predicate. The following are the three sentences containing double-object verb with three or more arguments:

a)      So, I will tell you about my opinion.

b)      I will tell you very briefly with smoking the [***] makes my heart instead [***] passive worse than [***]

c)      I have tell to you for my opinion to you

Based on the first sentence there are three arguments needed by the verb tell. The first argument I which function as subject is an agent because the subject performs the action of ‘telling’. The second argument you is an indirect object, and its lexical property is goal because you is the participant towards which the activity is directed. The lexical property of the last argument about my opinion is theme, because the phrase is the inanimate participant moved by the action.

The lexical entry from the first sentence can be as follows:

I will tell you about my opinion

tell       category:  [-F, -N, +V]

            ʘ-grid: <agent, goal,      theme>

            subcat:             [nominal, prepositional]

From the analysis of the first sentence, there are no mistakes in structure, lexical entry or collocation.

            The second sentence above is incomplete maybe because the utterance is not clear, therefore the writer analyzes the clause I will tell you very briefly with smoking. From these words, there are no mistakes in argument, because the verb tell can have minimal three arguments if the verb is followed by indirect object. However, there is a collocation mistake in this sentence. Based on the online Oxford collocation dictionary, the prepositions that can follow the verb tell are about, of, and to. Instead of using one of the correct preposition, the utterance show preposition with which make it not collocate and difficult in determining its theta grid.

The lexical entry from the second sentence can be as follows:

I will tell you very briefly with smoking
tell       category:  [-F, -N, +V]

            ʘ-grid: <agent, goal,      manner,    theme >

            subcat:             [nominal, adverbial, prepositional]

  The last sample in sentence *I have tell to you for my opinion to you has several mistakes. As the lexical entries below, the error can be seen clearly.

*I have tell to you for my opinion to you

tell       category:  [-F, -N, +V]

            ʘ-grid: <agent, goal,              theme,             goal >

            subcat:             [prepositional, prepositional, prepositional]

First about the tense, the auxiliary have should be followed by past participle, so it must be have told. Second, about the structure, the verb tell must be followed by noun directly, not a preposition, so the preposition to must be omitted. Since the word after the preposition is you or indirect object, it is possible to have three or more arguments.  There is also another collocation mistake occurs after the indirect object you. As the writer mentioned before, the verb tell must be followed by preposition about, of, or to. Therefore, the phrase for my opinion should be changed. The most correct preposition for this phrase is about, so it can be about my opinion. The last phrase to you is wrong, because there was already indirect object you which explain goal. So, the correct clause should be I have told you about my opinion.

Based on three examples above, there are some mistake made by Indonesian learners, such as collocation, tenses, and grammar. Mainly, they have tried to make a correct structure that tell which can be followed by indirect object have minimal three arguments in its application. Their structure of theta-grid which show as follows:

<agent, goal, theme>
<agent, goal, manner, theme>
*<agent, goal, theme, goal>

From these sentences, the Phrase Structure Tree (PST) is possible for first and second sentences. The following are the PST with X-bar theory of first sentence, I will tell you about my opinion.

The second sentence I will tell you very briefly with smoking has error in colocation. The preposition with can be corrected  by changing it become about because the preposition about is the most possible words related to the meaning of the sentence. Therefore, the writer makes PST for sentence I will tell you very briefly about smoking. The phrase structure tree of the corrected sentence can be seen as follow:

           

9. References:

Ary, Donald., Jacobs, Lucy Cheser., Razavieh, Asghar., Sorensen, Chris. 2009.  Introduction to Research 8th. Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing.

Beermann, Dorothee. (n.d.). Verb Semantics and Double Object Constructions. [pdf]. Available at: https://www.meertens.knaw.nl/books/progressingrammar/beermann.pdf [Acessed 24 December 2015]

Corder, S.P. (n.d). Double-Object Verbs in English. [pdf]. Available at: https://repozytorium.amu.edu.pl/bitstream/10593/10439/1/02_corder.pdf [Acessed 25 December 2015]

Creswell, John W. 2003. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches 2nd Edition. London: Sage Publications

Croft, William. and Cruse, D. Alan. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Galuh, Fahrina. 2013. The Indonesian Language Used By Pre-School Children: A Study On The Syntax. Thesis. Diponegoro University.

Lam, Shi-Ching Olivia. 2008. Object Functions and the Syntax of Double Object Constructions in Lexical Functional Grammar. Ph. D. Thesis. University of Oxford. Available at: http://web.hku.hk/~osclam/Thesis.pdf [Acessed 24 December 2015]

Moravcsik, Edith. 2006. An Introduction to Syntax: Fundamentals of Syntactic Analysis.London: Continuum

Newson, Mark, et al. 2006. Basic English Syntax with Exercises. Budapest: Bolcsesz Konzorcium

Seuren, Pieter A.M. 2004. Chomsky’s Minimalism. USA: Oxford University Press

Tell. (n.d). In Online OXFORD Collocation Dictionary, Retrieved December 26, 2015, from http://oxforddictionary.so8848.com/search?word=tell