A Comparative Study of The Indonesianand English Articles

:rx. Nfltfar

1. Int roductIon

Commonwealth Department of Edu­cation in Australia (1983:22) has

concluded that articles will be an area ofdifficulty for Indonesian students. This isbecause the" Bt (Bahasa Indonesia) hasno real equivalentsotthe English def initeand indefinite articles. In many caseswhere the articles are used in English nocorresponding word occurs in BahasaIndonesia". Errors related to the use ofarticles deserve close attention becausearticles are not only one of the grammarelements, but also • extremely frequentin English (Berry,1991:252). Carrol, et al(197 1) have found that articles accountfor almost every tenth word In English.This paper means to explore the similar..ties and differences of the articles in In­donesian and Eng lish, and how the find­ings may affect Indonesian students' dif~ficutties in using th e English articles.

is essential for learners of Englisheither as a second or fore ign language.Fromkln. et al. (1984: 11) write tbat " tounderstand the nature of language wemust understand the nature of this inter­nalised. unconscious set of rules wh ich ispart of every grammar of every langu­age". There are some definitions aboutgrammar, and "the word grammar hasv a r io us meanings · ( Quirk etal••1985:12). Robin (1971:17) states thatgrammar · is concerned wit h the patternsand arrangements of units establishedand organized on criteria other thanthose referable to phonetic features". Ur(1988:4) def ines gramm ar as " the way alanguage manipulates and combines

llllmlJltiora /1/11996

wo rds (or bits of wo rds) in order to fo rmlonger units of meaning". Qui rk et aI. donot wa nt to def ine grammar (1985:10) butstress that grammar includes both syntaxand the aspect of morphology ( the inter­nal structure of words) that deals withinflections. However. they provide a defi­nition about prescriptive grammar (Quirket al., 1985: t 4) leo a set of regu latbnsthat are bas ed on what is evaluated ascorrect or incorrect in the standa rd varie­ties",

There are" several thousands of lan­guages· ( Finegan et aI.1992:247) allover the world. Those languages can beidentical to one another or strikingly diffe­rent. These differences may include thesound, g rammar, syntax, morphology,meaning, etc. There have been studie son grammar comparisons from one lan­guage to another. Th e result of the studymay not only deepen the understandingof the language users in general but alsothe advancement of the study of lan­guages in particular. It is with that in mindthat this pape r, about the comparativestudy of the Indonesian and English artt­des, is wr itten.

Sentences used as examples arenumbered for easier reference. and cer­tain symbols and special printing effectsare used in this paper, for clarity and easein read ing. Th ey are :1. Underlining : for specifically referred

English 'NOmse.g. The indefinite artide an is usedbefore a noun beginning with a vowelsound.

2. Italics : for specifically referred Indo­nesian words