Preposition Errors in ESL
Writings
Mohammad Moradi
KOWSAR INSTITUTE
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
Dr. M. Moradi
Kowsar Corp.
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 80% precision
restricted domain
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
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
• Typical way
that non-nativeFeatures
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]
Dr. M. Moradi
Kowsar Corp.
Here are some of the more common prepositions:
A
aboard
about
above
across
after
against
along
alongside
amid
among
amongst
around
as
aside
astride
at
atop
B
barring
before
behind
below
beneath
beside
besides
between
beyond
but
by
C
circa
concerning
considering
D
despite
down
during
E
except
excepting
excluding
F
failing
following
for
from
I
in
including
inside
into
L
like
M
minus
N
near
nearby
next
notwithstanding
Kowsar Corp.
O
of
off
on
onto
opposite
outside
over
P
past
per
plus
R
regarding
round
S
save
since
T
than
through
throughout
till
times
to
toward
towards
U
under
underneath
unlike
until
unto
up
upon
V
versus
via
W
with
within
without
worth
Here are some compound prepositions:
according to
by way of
instead of
ahead of
in addition to
on account of
apart from
in front of
In place of
with respect to
because of
in spite of
by means of
up on
aside from
prior to
Common Preposition Confusions
Writer’s Prep
Rater’s Prep
Frequency
to
of
in
to
in
of
in
null
null
at
for
null
for
on
9.5%
7.3%
7.1%
4.6%
3.2%
3.1%
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 time
on a more general point of time
and 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