Abstract:
The aim of this study was to analyse the use of English prepositional phrases (PPs) in the essays of selected first year Bachelor of Human Resources Management students at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). The use of PPs are a key constituent of sentence structure. The study used the qualitative method for data collection and analysis. A total of 50 handwritten essays were collected from first year students who were studying towards their Bachelor of Human Resources at NUST. It is important to stress that handwritten essays, as compared to computer assisted typed essays, present realistic feedback on how the study group use PPs. Computers are likely to correct all grammatical aspects of the essays, thereby providing unrealistic data. The transformational generative grammar theory was applied as a framework for the study. The study adopted a descriptive study method because it was the most suitable approach, considering that the study looked at how words are combined to form phrases, with the main emphasis on the study of PPs. The convenience sampling method was used for data collection as it allows the researcher to collect data from a conveniently available pool of respondents. The study findings revealed that there are two types of PPs that were used in the students’ handwritten essays, namely the adjectival and the adverbial. The study further established six functions of PPs, applicable to the analysis of essays. Lastly, the study revealed that the analysis of syntactic ambiguities in PPs can help to clarify the punctual meaning of a PP. The study concluded by recommending that a functional syntactic study of students’ essays can be conducted to analyse other parts of speech such as the noun phrases, verb phrases or even the function of pronouns. In addition, a morpho-syntactic analysis of prepositional phrases and their ambiguities in the essays can be studied. The study further recommends that a contrastive analysis of the use of English prepositional phrases in comparison with prepositional phrases in indigenous languages can also be studied.
