towards an analysis of errors made by university students ... - DSpace

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counting up of ngps contained in each text was necessary
to
estimate
the çrror rate per student,in each ngp,and to verify
a possible relation
of dependence between the number and types of errors
and the number of words forming a ngp. —
We have decided not to count up those ngps formed by
deictics such as A,AN,THE,THIS,THAT,THESE and THOSE and
possessive pronouns operating at (m) immediately preceding a
noun at h, as in THIS WAY (T12P) and OUR OAR (T9P); ngps of
these types have not been counted up as two-word ngps
since
they have not constituted any difficulty in their translation
into Portuguese. The deictics A,AN,THE,THIS,THAT,THESE
and THOSE
have not been counted up even in ngps of three or more words. 22
However, possessive pronouns have been counted up in ngps which
present a submodifier, as in OUR OWN GALAXY
(TI1P) . Deictics
have also been counted up if they have been preceded by ALL, as
in ALL THESE MACHINES (TIP) and ALL THE METHODS (T8P) ; rankshifted
possessive nominal groups, as PLANCK'S in PLANCK'S CONSTANT (T8P)
have been counted up as exponents
of modifiers.
Any element operating at (q) has been left out of the
counting up of the words which form a ngp. If a nominal group
happens
to be operating at (q) it has been counted up as an
independent ngp, 24 for we have treated ngps independent of their
function, either in ngp structure
or in clause structure, as we
have already mentioned in chapter 1. .
5.5, Omissions in the translations of ngps
Within the total number of all types of errors made
in the translations of the twenty-eight texts administered to
the Physics and the Nursing Groups
- 1¿021 errors altogether - we