000028928 THE USE OF ELLIPSIS IN WRITTEN ENGLISH BY THE THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS VIỆC SỬ DỤNG DẤU CHẤM LẶP TRONG TIẾNG ANH VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ BA NGỮ ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ HÀ NỘI: VẤN ĐỀ VÀ GIẢI PHÁP
Classification o f errors
Syntax erro rs
Syntax errors are those that affect texts larger than the word, namely phrase, clause, sentence and paragraph.
Phrase structure errors occur when any component of the tripartite structure—modifier + head + qualifier—of a phrase is misapplied, and although many phrase types exist, the traditional five core types are noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (AdjP), adverb phrase (AdvP), and prepositional phrase (PP) For example, in the erroneous NP He is a cleverest boy in the class, the article modifying the head noun "boy" is misselected, yielding an incorrect "a cleverest boy" in the phrase; in the erroneous VP He * no can swim, the negator is misselected and misordered, producing the ungrammatical "no can swim" instead of the correct "cannot swim." Mastery of these categories aids in diagnosing and fixing English grammar issues related to phrase structure.
Phrase errors involve violations of the internal relations within phrases, while clause errors occur when whole phrases—though well-formed—are embedded into clauses incorrectly A phrase error may render a phrase superfluous ('He shaved the beard himself'), omit a required element ('Give it to the dog'), misorder constituents ('Watson sent to him the letter' instead of 'Watson sent him the letter'), or involve misselection of a phrase.
He seems *crying (to cry); or a hybird eg *You would be most likely get (first prize) (a mixture of ‘You would be likely to get’ and ‘You would likely get’).
Sentence errors occur when the selection and combination of clauses into larger units violate grammatical rules For example, Lightfoot argues that it is only through a hierarchical analysis that we can account for the ungrammaticality of certain constructions, and the well‑formed version would reflect that dependency more clearly Other common sentence errors involve coordination and subordination A typical coordination error is a sentence like “They believe they can become leaders in their field and a good secure job,” which violates the rule that only syntactically equal elements may be joined Subordination errors show up in relative clause formation, where the intended relationship between clauses is misrepresented or obscured.
(i) Gandhi, who led the independence movement in India, was a politician.
(ii) Gandhi, who was a politician, led the independence movement in India.
The errors here involve the mischoice between (i) and (ii) and vice versa Which is right depends on the context and on what point the writer is attempting to make.
Paragraph errors are intersentence problems that involve the five cohesion types identified by Halliday and Hasan (1976): reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion Because cohesive markers are optional, omitting them may appear discourteous to readers rather than constituting a true text error Research shows cohesion problems include the overuse, underuse, misselection, and misplacement of conjunctives; underutilization of ellipsis and substitution; excessive lexical cohesion; and deviations in reference cohesion marking For instance, Hubbard (1989) reports an example of an error in reference cohesion.
Simon is also a Christlike figure We see [it] in the way he gave his fo o d to Piggy (The ‘it’ is a misselection, where ‘this’ is called for).
Coherence errors
Coherence errors occur when a writer fails to establish the optimal relationships between ideas, undermining the smooth flow of a text Coherence can be categorized into topical, relational, and sequential types, but this study focuses specifically on errors of sequential coherence, where the order of ideas or connectors disrupts progression By analyzing sequential coherence, we can identify how missequenced information, gaps, or illogical transitions affect readability and comprehension.
Sequential coherence requires constitutive propositions to be arranged in an effective order, and the notion of effectiveness introduces discourse rhetoric, a topic that has long attracted the interest of writing specialists There is growing evidence that different cultures and language communities have different conventions and expectations for maximizing rhetorical effectiveness.
Purves (1988:9) observed that international students often wrote in ways that did not match the target language’s standard because they had learned different patterns for organizing and presenting their writing What they produced was not necessarily wrong, but it differed from expected norms Consequently, labeling these differences as errors is problematic; drawing on Austin’s (1962) speech-act theory, these deviations are better described as infelicities rather than mistakes.
Coherence also subsumes the informativity of discourse, which operates on two dimensions: information load and the stepwise unveiling of new information in relation to what is already known A text loses coherence if it misjudges the reader’s knowledge—overestimating it makes the material inaccessible by overloading the reader, while underestimating it renders it banal by withholding too much To maximize communicative dynamism, information should be unveiled gradually, with each new element anchored to the given, familiar context, producing a given–new–given–new chain An EL2 discourse example cited by Deyes (1978: 26) illustrates a failure to package information in this progressive given–new sequence: “In the midst of a city street full of high buildings, we found a little house It had the appearance of a fairy-tale house”—a passage that stops short of building coherence by not properly calibrating what is given before introducing the new image.
Effective sentence construction starts with introducing new information, such as “they found a little house,” which becomes the knowledge readers carry into the next sentence and legitimizes the pronoun it If the following sentence ends with the second mention of “house” as though it were new, the flow is disrupted and the information structure is muddled The truly new element, however, is the fairy tale, and that should be the final, emphasized piece—placing the fairy tale at the end while the house is established earlier and referenced by the pronoun rather than treated as new information.
To maintain the rhythm of given: new delivery of information, the end of this sentence should be rewritten as ‘house in a fa iry ta le \
Causes of errors in second language learn ing
Interlingual errors and mother tongue interference
Errors in second language learning stem from interference by the learner's first language (L1) This L1 transfer occurs when differences between L1 and L2 lead the speaker to reuse L1 patterns to express meanings in the target language When two languages encode the same meaning with different devices, the learner tends to transfer the realization from L1 into L2 For example, a French speaker might say "I have cold" in English, mirroring the French "J'ai froid," which illustrates how the same idea is realized differently across languages Understanding this transfer helps explain systematic error patterns and supports targeted teaching strategies and SEO-friendly explanations of how first-language influence shapes second-language use.
Cultural differences significantly influence negative transfer in second language learning Lado (1957) argued that errors originate from learners’ tendency to transfer the forms and meanings of their native language and culture into the foreign language and its culture, reflecting how native-language structures shape learners’ perception and use of the target language.
Beyond the distinctions between first language (LI) and second language (L2), there are generally additional factors that can cause LI interference in second-language production (Dulay et al., 1982) A primary source is a gap in common knowledge and linguistic competence at a given learning stage This gap is common in early classroom settings, where learners are asked to produce the new language in written compositions, spoken discourse, or tests, while their language competence has not yet reached the level needed to communicate effectively.
The way learners are required to produce the second language is a key factor in second language acquisition Tasks that compel learners to think in their native tongue—such as translating a paragraph into the target language, writing an essay, or describing a picture aloud—show how production demands shape cognitive processing and language output These translation- and production-based activities can affect accuracy and fluency, ultimately influencing the effectiveness of language learning by bridging meaning, form, and usage across languages.
Interlingual errors, caused by first-language interference, arise from the fundamental differences between the two languages The influence of a learner's first language on second-language acquisition is shaped by three key factors: performance pressure, a limited language environment, and the way verbal performance is elicited.
Intralingual errors and developmental errors
Richards (1971b) defines intralingual errors as reflecting the general characteristics of rule learning, while developmental errors indicate learners constructing hypotheses about the target language from their limited classroom or textbook experience He attributes these errors to over-generalization, ignorance of rule restrictions, incomplete application of rules, and the formation of false concepts hypothesized by the learners.
Over-generalization, defined by Jacobovits (1969:55), is the tendency to apply previously learned language strategies to new situations, producing forms that are misleading or inapplicable It occurs when a learner derives deviant structures from experience with correct forms in the target language For example, after being taught that the third-person singular present simple adds -s, a learner may apply this rule to contexts where it does not belong, saying can sings instead of can sing Typical erroneous forms include we are hope, it is occurs, he come from, and we saw two mouses; the correct versions are we hope, it occurs, he comes from, and we saw two mice.
Over-generalization is linked to redundancy reduction, also called simplification, in language learning The simplifications observed in second-language learners likely parallel the simplifications seen when children acquire their mother tongue, indicating similar developmental patterns in language acquisition across both groups.
One typical error in English learning is omitting the third-person singular -s in the present simple or dropping the past tense -ed in regular verbs For example, a learner might say, "Yesterday I go to the university and I meet my new professor," but the correct forms are "Yesterday I went to the university and I met my new professor." In this pattern, the -ed marker seems to carry no meaning in narrative because the past tense is signaled by the lexical cue yesterday, leading learners to simplify sentence production at the expense of grammatical accuracy; to address this, focus on practicing subject-verb agreement and the regular past tense endings in everyday speech and writing.
Over-generalization of a grammatical structure can arise from over-learning of that structure, driven by certain teaching and presentation techniques When different pattern drills are used, they can interfere with one another, increasing the likelihood that learners produce hybrid structures Richards provided an example to illustrate how these dynamics unfold in classroom practice.
Instruction: Change to continuous form.
Student: He is walks quickly.
George (1972) also postulated that the erroneous structure Did you mended it? is caused by the successive introductions of the simple present statements, simple present questions and simple past statements.
Over-generalization is a major source of intralingual and developmental errors in second language learning It stems from learners' ongoing language processing and their continual hypothesis formation about linguistic rules, a cycle that persists throughout the second language acquisition process.
Ignorance o f rule restrictions
Ignorance of rule restrictions is a form of over-generalization in second language acquisition, arising from learners' failure to observe the limits of existing grammatical structures Learners apply a previously acquired rule to a new context where it does not fit, producing errors such as "make him to do it" instead of "make him do it" and ignoring the distributional restrictions of the verb make (Richards, 1971b) These errors are commonly attributed to rote rule learning and analogy Another example occurs when learners, after learning a pattern like "say to me," produce by analogy forms such as "he asked to me" instead of the correct "he asked me."
According to Richards, incomplete application of rules is caused by the fact that second language learners are perhaps primarily interested in efficient communication without the need for mastering the rules Another reason for this is the classroom use of questions as a teaching technique to elicit utterances from learners Questions of this kind are neither to find out something nor to establish the targeted skill For example:
Teacher: Do you cook very much?
Student: Yes, I cook very much.
False conceptualization is suggested by Richards to refer to a class of developmental errors resulting from faulty comprehension of distinction of target language items An example is the confusion between was and is which are interpreted by the learners as a marker of the past tense and a marker of the present tense respectively The learners may consequently produce one day it was happened and he is speaks French Richards attributes this sort of errors to poor classroom presentation of teaching items and presentation based on contrastive analysis.
Errors in the second language learning process arise from a variety of sources Some errors are interlingual, caused by interference from the learner’s first language, a consequence of the different natures of the two languages This interference often affects grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation, producing predictable patterns of mistakes in target language use Understanding these sources enables teachers to design targeted instruction and learners to adopt effective strategies to reduce errors and improve proficiency in second language acquisition.
Intralingual and developmental errors in second-language learning arise from a mix of factors, including ineffective teaching techniques, course design problems, learners’ own language-learning strategies, and mutual interference among items within the target language Yet the categories used to describe intralingual and developmental errors can be vague and confusing, since an item like “he can sings” might be attributed to over-generalization in some analyses and to hypothesized false concepts in others Littlewood (1980: 92) argues that many processes can operate simultaneously and reinforce one another, contributing to learners’ errors.
The stu d y
Research questions
The study reported in this thesis was to answer the following questions:
1 What errors do intermediate students at Hanoi Open University (HOU) commit in using English ellipsis?
2 What might be the causes of the errors?
3 What suggestions for an effective avoidance of errors in using English ellipsis can be made in order to help students acquire the use of this cohesive device?
M ethodology
This empirical study involved a group of Vietnamese learners of English, aged 19–21 They are currently my students at Hanoi Open University, where I am teaching them English.
The cohort consists of 100 intermediate English learners In addition to seven years of prior English study in secondary and high school, some participants spent about a year in a preparatory program to prepare for a university entrance test All students have completed two and a half years of English as their major subject at university They are scheduled to attend 30 forty-five-minute English lessons per week, with a yearly syllabus spanning 36 weeks (excluding holidays and exams), totaling 1,080 forty-five-minute periods annually, encompassing the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
These students at the English faculty of Hanoi Open University studied a sequence of writing courses—Writing One, Writing Two, and Essentials of Writing—over three years to develop their writing skills In addition to the four language skills, they completed two English practice periods: Vietnamese translation and a weekly session on business-letter writing as supplementary skills The group was selected for the study because all members had fairly high attendance in English lessons and had passed the final English examination of their last term, with scores ranging from 5 to 8 Students who did not meet these criteria were considered unlikely to provide reliable data for the survey tasks.
Writing in English is a process that develops alongside reading, listening, and speaking, and should be trained through consistent practice across all language skills Many students wrongly assume that strong speaking automatically yields strong writing, but when they sit down to write, it often proves harder than expected In learning English as a second language, learners frequently translate from Vietnamese in their minds, which prevents them from producing correct sentences without first grasping the meaning of each word As a result, they struggle to apply effective techniques for organizing ideas and conveying them clearly, leading to a lack of coherence in their writing.
Examinations serve to both satisfy course requirements and assess students' progress To participate in the end-of-term exam, students must pass the mid-term test as part of the course requirements Good marks motivate students to work harder, while poor marks highlight the topics still to be learned Analysts believe that learners' difficulties with cohesive devices, particularly ellipsis, can reveal, through systematic analysis, how far students have progressed and what remains for them to master In the context of English teaching in Vietnam, many studies have used corpora drawn from Vietnamese students across different universities; most investigations examine errors collected from questionnaires, typically in written tasks.
This thesis will present an empirical study featuring a thorough analysis of the errors made by Vietnamese learners of English at HOU in using English ellipsis By focusing on ellipsis error analysis, the study will yield several benefits: it will indicate how well students understand the meaning and use of English ellipsis, identify the specific areas where they struggle and the types of instructional support that will help, and provide feedback that allows learners to self-correct in this domain (Corder, 1967).
Additionally, for second language acquisition researchers, errors offer valuable evidence about the learning processes and the strategies learners use as they learn and acquire the language.
2.2.2 Description of data collection instruments
This study investigates whether Vietnamese students understand English ellipsis and can use it in real-life communication The data collection instrument was designed around the well-established second language learning process, in which learners are exposed to the target language, internalize its rules, and then produce utterances, capturing the progression from recognition to production Given the study’s scope, the instrument emphasizes errors in the three main areas of ellipsis proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976): nominal, verbal, and clausal ellipsis Implemented as written tasks, the instrument comprises three types of exercises: omission of elliptical items, expansion of elliptical items, and Vietnamese–English translation using elliptical constructions.
Exercise 1 (omission o f elements which can be ellipted) consists of 11 items This exercise is aimed at checking if the students can understand and recognize the meaning and use of ellipted items in different functional contexts involving the three above-mentioned elliptical areas Exercise 1 includes various ellipted items in such syntactic function as repeated subject + auxiliary verb (q.l), lexical verb (q.2 and q.5), bare-infinitive clause
(q.3), verb + auxiliary verb (q.4), subject complement (q.6), direct object (q.7), head noun
The article examines ellipsis in complex sentences—specifically questions 8 through 11—where subordinators introduce clauses with repeated subjects or non-ellipted subject complements The aim is to rewrite the given sentences by omitting any material that can be ellipsed without altering meaning For example, in "Our atmosphere, while it is beneficial for life in general, prevents us from seeing the universe in any but a very restricted range of light," the repeated subject and the auxiliary verb "it is" may be dropped because the two clauses share the same subject and the subordinate clause uses BE, producing a tighter, equivalent sentence.
Exercise 2 (expansion o f ellipted items) is aimed at checking how the students realize and interpret ellipted items in real situations It consists of 9 items with a view to provoking errors in the three areas: nominal, verbal and clausal ellipsis The language elicited in this exercise is restricted to sentences and the use of ellipted items with their meanings suitable with semantic functions given in different situations, which is supposed to be a difficult thing for the students This restricted exercise is believed to be efficient for eliciting errors in the particular syntactic area Although ellipsis is emphasized in this exercise, the students had a chance to expand ellipted items in the given sentences to make the meanings of these sentences clearer In question 1 of this exercise; Although poor, he is very honest, the students were required to expand the repeated subject + auxiliary verb he is in the subordinate clause to give the readers clearer meaning of this sentence Different ellipted items which were required to expand in other sentences are: lexicaI verb (q.2 and q.5), bare-infinitive clause (q.3), verb + auxiliary verb (q.4), subject complement (q.6), direct object (q.7), head noun (q.8) and subordinator + repeated subject (q.9).
Exercise 3, the Vietnamese–English translation task, is designed to assess how students use English ellipsis across nominal, verbal, and clausal forms It was chosen because it aligns with the learners’ intermediate level The exercise comprises sentences that feature different ellipsis items: repeated subject plus auxiliary verb (q.l), a lexical verb (q.2 and q.5), and bare infinitive clauses.
(q.3), verb + auxiliary verb (q.4), subject complement (q.6), direct object (q.7), head noun
The article analyzes how Vietnamese-to-English translation exercises use ellipted constructions across questions 8–11, including patterns with a subordinating structure plus a repeated subject and patterns involving non-elliptic subject complements and repeated subjects Students translate these sentences by omitting the repeated subject and its auxiliary in the subordinate clause, resulting in fluent ellipsis such as “Until asked to speak, you would be well advised to remain silent.” An example sentence, “We advise you to keep quiet until you are asked to speak,” shows co-referential subjects across clauses and a BE auxiliary in the subordinate clause, illustrating how to preserve meaning while producing concise English The overarching guidance is to apply ellipsis of the repeated subject and auxiliary in the subordinate clause to produce natural translations that comply with English ellipsis rules and maintain the original intent.
2.2.3 Description of error analysis procedure
Corder (1974), one of the researchers who devoted themselves to error analysis, elaborated his procedure for error analysis, distinguishing five stages:
• Selection of a corpus of language
• Identification of errors in the corpus
• Classification of the errors identified
• Explanation of the causes of the errors
• Evaluation or error gravity ranking of the errors
However, for the characteristics of this particular study, its procedure can be described in detail as follows:
Participants were selected and asked to complete three written tasks within 90 minutes, working independently and without consulting dictionaries or grammar handbooks to ensure data reliability and validity The study examined three corpora: omission of ellipted items, expansion of those items, and translation from Vietnamese into English Upon submission, all responses were carefully reviewed to identify coherence errors and any syntax deviations, with a focus on ellipted-item usage while noting other deviations if they occurred An error classification with counts for each type was then presented The identified errors were analyzed in depth using both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore their causes, including psycholinguistic and interference factors as proposed by Ellis (1985) Explanations for erroneous ellipted-item use were detailed for each case, drawing on Standard English Grammar and consulting relevant grammar and discourse references.
Finally, any findings related to the purpose of the study were also presented.
Preliminary results and data analysis
Scoring and evaluation of the tasks in this thesis relied on both the literature on ellipsis and established publications, notably Quirk et al.’s A Grammar of Contemporary English (1972) and Michael Swan’s Practical English Usage (1999–2000) This blend was essential, because judgments about how well subjects mastered the language could not rest on statistics and error analysis alone If participants did not complete tasks or gave no answer, no errors would be recorded, making conclusions based solely on error data unreliable.
2.3.1.1 Scoring and evaluation o f exercise 1: omission o f ellipted items
Each of the appropriate answers to 11 questions was marked with 1 point and an error was marked for those items where an ellipted item outside the domain elicited was chosen.
No points were awarded for sentences where no ellipted items were chosen A task was considered passed if the syntactically appropriate use of ellipted items appeared in more than half of the total responses On the 11-point scale for the first exercise, 48 of 100 students (48%) passed with scores ranging from 6 to 10; none achieved a perfect 11 The scores of non-passed students ranged from 3 to 5 (no scores from 0 to 2), resulting in an overall average of 48% It can be generally noted that nearly half of the intermediate-level students failed to recognize the appropriate ellipted items to be ellipted in the given sentences See table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Evaluation o f omission o f ellipted items
2.3.1.2 Scoring and evaluation o f exercise 2: expansion o f ellipted items
In Exercise 2, students must interpret ellipted items in real-life situations by expanding them within the given sentences Like Exercise 1, each appropriately expanded ellipted item across the nine sentences earns one point, while sentences that do not include an expanded ellipted item or that supply an inappropriate ellipted item receive zero points The task is designed to assess students' ability to apply this skill in authentic contexts.
A student was considered to have passed this exercise if they expanded syntactically and coherently appropriate ellipted items in more than half of their answers Compared with Exercise 1, the results of this exercise were more satisfactory, with 85% of students passing and scores ranging from 5 to 9; among the passing students, 16 achieved the full score of 9 points Among the non-passed students, none failed to provide answers to at least two questions Overall, the exercise yielded better outcomes than the previous one, with approximately five sixths of students passing and nearly one sixth failing to interpret the appropriate ellipted items (see Table 2.2 below).
Table 2.2: Evaluation o f expansion o f ellipted items
2.3.1.3 Scoring and evaluation o f exercise 3: Vietnamese - English translation
Exercise 3 is the more difficult one compared with exercise 1 and exercise 2 because in addition to understanding the meaning and use of ellipted items, the students need to have the ability to express them in real situations by translating the given sentences from Vietnamese into English Like exercise 1 and exercise 2, each of the appropriately translated sentences among the 11 sentences in this exercise was scored one point and no point was scored for those sentences where no response was supplied or an inappropriate ellipted items was employed in the sentence A task was considered “passed” if appropriate ellipted items were supplied in more than half of the total number of the answers.
Compared with exercises 1 and 2, the number of students who passed exercise 3 is nearly the same as those who passed exercise 1 (47 vs 52) and markedly lower than those who passed exercise 2 (85) In exercise 3, 47% of the students passed with scores ranging from 6 to 8; among the passed, 7 students earned the maximum score of 8, and no one scored between 9 and 11 Among the non-passed students, every student answered at least two questions Table 2.3 shows that more than half of the students failed to use ellipted items in a natural way.
Table 2.3: Evaluation ofVietnamese-English translation
2.3.2 Numbers and types of errors
Before presenting the error classification, the analysis limitations tied to the study's scope, the design of the data-collection instrument, and the focus on investigating error types and their sources rather than providing a statistical tally are acknowledged; as a result, it remains uncertain whether all ellipsis-related errors have been identified or covered.
Error classifications in the literature vary by the criteria used, and a common approach groups errors by their sources Aligning with the study’s aim to investigate error causes, this work adopts a three-criterion framework—modality, medium, and level—for taxonomy, while reserving a detailed analysis of causes for the next section in accordance with the error-analysis procedure proposed by Corder (1974) James (1998) distinguishes text errors as arising from misapplied lexical and grammatical rules: lexical errors involve morphology, syntax, semantic value, and secondary meaning, while grammatical errors concern morphology and syntax Discourse errors reflect failures in applying coherent and pragmatic rules, with coherence errors centered on content and the conceptual relatedness of propositions Rather than surface markers, the focus is on underlying conceptual relationships, and pragmatics errors relate to how messages are encoded by speakers and interpreted by hearers The study concentrates on sequential coherence and the correct ordering of language items; therefore, following James’s framework and the identified ellipsis-related errors, all errors are grouped into two major categories—syntax and coherence—each subdivided into specific types.
+ Syntax errors (Wrong forms of ellipted items)
Type 1: Misomission of repeated subject + lexicaI verb including subordinator (22 errors) Type 2: Misomission of lexical verb + preposition (65 errors)
Type 3: Misomission of to-infinitive clause (88 errors)
Type 4: Misexpansion of bare-infinitive clause (31 errors)
Type 5: Misomission of repeated subject + auxiliary verb (23 errors)
Type 6: Misomission of object complement (38 errors)
+ Coherence errors (Misplacement of ellipted items)
Type 1: Misplacement of lexical verb (31 errors)
Type 2: Misplacement of subject complement (25 errors)
Type 3: Misplacement of direct object (66 errors)
+ Other types of errors (repetition of ellipted items where ellipsis is needed, misexpansion of ellipted items or use of ellipsis where impossible)
Typel: Repetition of head noun where ellipsis is needed (51 errors)
Type 2: Omission of repeated subject alone where impossible (44 errors)
Type 3: Omission of subject complement where impossible (37 errors)
Type 4: Misexpansion of repeated subject alone where impossible (92 errors)
Because the exercises in the elicitation instrument share similar designs, many of the collected errors fall into the same categories across different exercises These recurring error types are described in detail below.
Exercise 1 distinguishes errors into ten types across two categories—syntax and coherence—and analyzes errors in three ellipsis forms: nominal, verbal, and clausal Table 2.4 shows that the total number of ellipsis errors is substantial Specifically, nominal ellipsis has 28 “other types” errors (Question 7); verbal ellipsis records 107 syntax and coherence errors across Questions 2, 3, and 4; and clausal ellipsis accounts for 193 errors (syntax, coherence, and other types) across Questions 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 Consequently, other types of errors constitute the largest share of the total—43%—with syntax at 30% and coherence at 27% (Table 2.4).
Table 2.4: Errors in exercise 1: Omission o f ellipted items
Nom inal ellipsis Verbal ellip sis Clausal ellipsis Three areas o f ellipsis
Wr use o f ell o f 2nd occ o f repe S - - - - 45 23 45 14
Total number of answers: 11 x 100 = 1100 Percentage of wrong answers: 328 : 1100 = 29.8%
In exercise 2, errors were found in 2 questions (3 and 9) In total, the students made
Across 100 students taking a 9-item test, there were 900 possible correct responses, yet 81 errors occurred, yielding an average wrong-answer rate of 9% (81/900) The errors fell into two categories: syntax errors and other types The analysis of ellipsis usage shows that errors were concentrated in two ellipsis contexts—verbal ellipsis (question 3) and clausal ellipsis (question 9)—with nearly identical counts, 42 and 39 respectively, as presented in table 2.5.
Table 2.5: Errors in exercise 2: expansion o f ellipted items
T ypes o f errors Verbal ell Clausal ell Tw o areas o f ell
Syntax Wr exp o f bare-inf cl
Total number of answers: 9 x 100 = 900 Percentage of wrong answers: 81 : 900 = 9%
In exercise 3, errors were found in eight questions, totaling 254 mistakes by 100 students on an 11-question test, which yields a maximum possible score of 1100 and an average wrong-answer rate of about 23% (254/1100) Errors were categorized into syntax and coherence, with Table 2.6 detailing ellipsis errors across nominal, verbal, and clausal forms Nominal ellipsis errors (question 8) number 23; verbal ellipsis errors (in questions 2, 3, and 6) total 115; and clausal ellipsis errors (in questions 1, 7, 9, and 10) total 116.
Table 2.6: Errors in exercise 3: Vietnamese - English translation
Nominal ell Verbal ell Clausal ell Three areas o f ell
M issom o f O + to-inf cl + Cs - - 38 33 - - 38 15
Wr use o f ell o f 2'"1 occ o f repe S - - - - 47 40 47 19
Total number of answers: 11 x 100 = 1100Percentage of wrong answers: 254 : 1100 = 23 %
2.3.3.1 Errors in omission o f ellipted items
Across exercise 1 of the instrument, 328 errors were recorded in 10 of the 11 questions, stemming from the incorrect use of ellipted items and falling into two main categories: syntax and coherence.
Syntax errors made by the students were found in two areas of ellipsis: verbal and clausal ellipsis.
Type 1: Misomission of repeated subject + lexical verb including subordinator
Question 1 shows that 22 students misapplied ellipsis by keeping the repeated subject and a lexical verb in the subordinate clause (the “it is” form) instead of omitting “it is” when the pronoun it refers back to the main-clause subject “our atmosphere.” The sentence “Our atmosphere, while it is beneficial for life in general, prevents us from seeing the universe in any but a very restricted range of light” illustrates the rule: the repeated subject and the BE verb in the subordinate clause can be dropped, yielding a reduced form such as “Our atmosphere, being beneficial for life in general, prevents us from seeing the universe.” In some cases, subordinate clauses can be reduced by omitting the subordinator and turning the lexical verb into the -ing form However, clauses of reason cannot be reduced this way; Quirk et al (1972) note that reason clauses are typically preserved or rewritten as participle constructions with the subordinator omitted and the verb in -ing form.
E.g [1] As I was anxious to please him, I bought him a nice present.
—ằ Being anxious to please him, I bought him a nice present.
[2] Because I felt tired, I went to bed early.
-> Feeling tired, I went to bed early.
When students learned the formation of participle constructions, they perceived a rule permitting the omission of subordinators in present-participle constructions that express reason, and they consequently extended this rule to reduced adverbial clauses (verbless clauses) This intralingual error appears to arise from over-generalization, as Richards (1971b) suggested.
Type 2: Misomission of lexical verb + preposition
Sum m ary
After analyzing the concrete errors students make with English ellipsis, this chapter shows that the mistakes occur at both surface structure and deep structure The study’s findings indicate that students’ ellipsis errors involve patterns of omission and replacement that affect the observable text as well as the underlying syntax, revealing weaknesses in both surface-level form and deeper grammatical representation Overall, the results suggest that ellipsis proficiency depends on integrating attention to surface cues with a solid grasp of deep structural rules, pointing to instructional approaches that address both aspects in tandem.
Among Vietnamese students, the most frequent error in verbal ellipsis is replacing the ellipsis of a bare infinitive with the ellipsis of a to-infinitive This tendency stems from first-language interference, since Vietnamese lacks a pro-form for infinitive clauses in predications, leading learners to generalize to-infinitives in ellipsis where bare infinitives are required.
There is a marked tendency to select ellipted items inappropriately, a pattern that stems from overgeneralizing ellipsis rules to contexts where they do not apply Such misselection signals incomplete mastery of ellipted items in English and reflects faulty or incomplete awareness of the rule and its restrictions Clearer guidance and practice on when ellipsis is permissible can help writers distinguish appropriate omissions from incorrect ones, improving accuracy and coherence in English texts.
Another important error is inconsistent ellipsis, where the first occurrence of an omitted item is treated differently from its second occurrence, or vice versa, which can confuse readers Vietnamese is an isolating and analytic language with little to no morphological changes in word forms, which influences how meaning is conveyed The function and meaning of each phrase, clause, and sentence change with word order in Vietnamese, whereas in English, morphological changes of word forms often help define grammatical function and meaning, making morphological cues a useful tool for understanding the sentence.