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Dedication

This paper is dedicated... To the soul of my lovely mother, who I have never missed even my soul like her , and to my father who can never be replaced. to my amazing wife, who had the confidence to support my vision when it was not always the path of least resistance; to my wonderful children, Batool , Abrar, and Yahiya , whom I love dearly and I am more proud of than words can possibly express. and to my brothers and sisters whom believed me and always encouraged and supported my endeavors, even in those times when they thought I was wrong.

Thank you for always letting me be me.

INTRODUCTION
All praise is due to Allah, and Allah's Peace and Blessings be upon His Final Messenger, his pure family, his noble Companions, and all those who follow them with righteousness until the Day of Judgment. We have knew that there are very much varations of languages in the wold . Those variations can be found in the real event of the communication. ``language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication`` Ronald Wardaugh in Introduction to linguistic,1977:3. For those definitions above we can conclud that language consist of the sympols that have variations . Those variations is already exist in the soceity or mixture of many varieties .Example the majority of Indonesisn Moslem people know and use the arabic in reading the Holy Quraan , eventhough there are many varities of the languages in Inonesian society . One of these varities between the languages is the use of prepositions. prepositions are one of the most difficult aspects of English for Arab students to learn. It also has been noticed that the extent of the difficulty is not always the same, and that students face much more difficulties in using some English prepositions than others. the student will often form what is called an interlanguage grammar. Lydia White noted that students make many mistakes while learning a second language, but that these mistakes are not random. Instead, they appear to be rule governed, though those rules may not appear in the L1 or the L2 . The theory is that while they are learning the new language, they are accessing UG in order to reset the parameters of their first language. Thus, even though they are making mistakes, they are governing their mistakes according to UG (2003). However, even though they are accessing UG while learning the new language,they are also applying some rules from their first language (L1) onto the target language (L2), a phenomenon known as learning transfer (James, 2007). According to Jie, this transfer can be either helpful or harmful.

When it is harmful, it is also known as negative transfer or interference (2008). When a students native grammar clashes with the target grammar, he or she can do one of four things, according to Jie : )1( over generalize the rules of L2 and apply them to related situations; (2) ignore the rules of L2 and use the rules of L1; (3) apply the rule incompletely; or (4) create an imaginary rule based on what he or she thinks the rule is in the L2(2008). The mistakes that students make in relation to prepositions will vary according to their language backgrounds. Moreover, the majority of students usually commit the same errors such as.
The use of the preposition "from" in sentences as:

1. Part from the plan. 2. Some from my friends. 3. We have lived in Sanaa from 1975.
The use of the proposition "on" as in:

I will thank him on his advice. They told him on everything. The aim of the study : For the students: Students who will get the information in using the preposition , and the comparison of both langages . For the readers: The reader can understand easier in using the prepositions of both languages.

Language Transfer
In Websters Third New World International Dictionary (1986) transfer, derived from the Latin word transferre, means to carry, to bear or to print, impress or otherwise copy from one surface to another. It also means the
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carry-over or generalization of learned responses from one type of situation to another. This meaning from the dictionary shows clearly the transfer is a neutral word in origin and nature since it does not indicate whether what is carried over is bad or good (liu, 2001). Behaviourist views considered transfer in terms of habit formation. In other words, the habits of the NL would be carried over into the FL. Lado (1957:2) makes that clear when he says: Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture both productively when attempting to speak the language and to act in the culture, and receptively when attempting to grasp and to understand the language and the culture as practiced by natives.

Types of Transfer
Different types of transfer are stated in the definition of transfer given by Ellis (1994 :341). Transfer is to be seen as a general cover term for a number of different kinds of influence from languages other than the L2. The study of transfer involves the study of facilitation(positive transfer) , errors (negative transfer), avoidance of target language forms and their over-use.

Positive Transfer
It is the transfer of a skill X which facilitates the learning or has a positive influence on the command of a skill Y because of similarities between both skills. Allen and Corder (1975:26) maintain that positive transfer helps new learning, for instance, it is easy to learn to pronounce aspirated voice less stops in a second language if the language also has also aspirated voice less stops. Hence, prior language knowledge can be very helpful in learning a new language.

Negative Transfer
It is the transfer of a skill X which impedes the learning or has a negative influence on the command of a skill Y because of differences between both skills. In the field of SL/FL learning, it is understood as the systematic influence of the NL on the TL.or some linguists such as

Weinreich (1953), negative transfer is referred to as interference. He also explains the occurrence of this phenomenon by contrasting it to positive transfer. He states that: When a process of second language learning takes place, those linguistics phenomena which are similar in form, meaning and distribution are regarded as facilitating the process, and the transfer is seen as positive, if they are dissimilar, the transfer is considered negative and acquisition is viewed as distorted because the two structures differ. The phenomenon involved in these difficulties was called interference (1953:1) Thus, this phenomenon is equated with difficulty in learning a L2 as an outcome of differences of the two languages structures.

Contrastive Analysis
Challenges to assumptions about the importance of transfer did not have much impact on the history of language teaching until the late 1970s. The challenges that arose in that period were largely in reaction to the claim made by Fries (1952) and Lado (1957) that states that the existence of cross-linguistic differences in second language learning could be determined through contrastive analysis. This approach has been the subject of intense debate Applied linguists and language teachers have expressed divergent views on its feasibility and usefulness.

Contrastive Analysis and Language Transfer Theory


The psychological basis of Contrastive Analysis transfer theory elaborated within the behaviorist theory of psychology. In other words, C A is founded on the assumption that L2 learners will tend to transfer to their L2 utterances the formal features of their L1 as Lado (1957:02) puts it Individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings and the distribution of forms and meanings of their native language and culture to the foreign language and culture.

Syntactic Properties
Arab-grammarians used to classify Arabic words into three classes: Nouns, Verbs and particles. From the class of particles, they separated

prepositions which they called huruf al-jarr (particles of attraction) (Hamdallah and Tushyeh, 1993). Arabic prepositions are divided into two morphological classes: The first class consists of prepositions that are inseparable i.e., which are always united in writing with the following noun. They occur as prefixes to the complement: bi (at, by, in, with); li (to); Ka (as, like); Ta (by in swearing); wa (by in swearing). The second class is made of prepositions which are independent and either bilateral or trilateral.

Prepositions in English
Prepositions are abstract words that have no concrete meaning. They merely show the relationships between groups of words. A preposition is one of the eight parts of speech. Specifically, a preposition is a connector: its function is to connect a noun or pronoun (called the object of the preposition) to another word in a sentence. It also shows how that noun or pronoun (its object) is related to the other word. Consequently, a preposition can never stand alone: it must always be contained within a phrase (a group of words) called prepositional phrase. Most often, prepositions show relationships of direction, location, and time, but they can also express other relationships as well (for example, the prepositions, but, except, without, etc. show a relationship of exclusion). According to Show (1986, P: 220), there are sixty words that can be used as prepositions in English. Most of them show relationship of direction, location and time and some can show a relationship of exclusion Chalker( 1992 ,P:217) says that at, by ,for, from, in, on, to and with are the most frequently used prepositions in English .Because this paper is concerned with the effect of Arabic prepositions on learning English prepositions, the focus will be only on these which are equivalent to some Arabic prepositions which lead Arab learners of English to commit errors.

Arabic prepositions
Arabic prep. The meaning The used tool Exchange /b/ At a place Condition /m/ /?I/ /monu/ Company of somebody /something Towards somebody/ something Point of time in the past up to now On the subject of Examples Eng. equivalent With For At With With To Since About

n /

The meaning of Arabic prepositions:


Arabic prepositions The meaning Starting point /mIn/ Partition Cause To be given to /Ia:m/ In accordance with Purpose or benefit /fi/ Indicating state Into a place Examples English equivalent From Of Of To To For In In

Difficulties in learning English prepositions


Zughoul (1979) lists the following sources of difficult in learning English prepositions. He points out that the vfirst three of these sources are general difficulties while the last two are special problems faced by arab EFL learners: 1. One obvious source of difficulty is the number of meaning each preposition carries . 2. Different prepositions used with the same work yield very different meanings. For example, look at, look after, look up, etc. 3. According to Takahashi (1969), English speakers are unable to offer a logical explanation for the occrrence of such prepositions or a conceptual guide of their usages. 4. Traditional methods of teaching such as the grammar-translation method, encorage students to translate in their minds. 5. Related to the problem of the translation interference from the native language Arabic.

prepositional errors
According to Corder (1973) and Brown (2000) (as cited in Keshavarz, 2005), EFL learners` errors can be divided into three categories: substitution, addition, and omission. In their studies on errors of EFL students using the same classification of prepositional errors, Hamdallah (1988), Scott and Tucker (1974), and Tahaineh (2009) further delineated the three categories as follows: (1) Substitution: An incorrect preposition is substituted for a correct one. For example: The teacher was satisfied *from our compositions (instead of with). He was angry *from his bad marks (instead of at). (2) Addition: A preposition is used in a sentence which does not require a preposition. For example:

He entered *into the room (an unnecessary into). They always discuss about politics (an unnecessary about). (3) Omission: A preposition is deleted which is necessary. For example: She came Sunday (omission of on). The classes are held noon (omission of at). After classifying the types of prepositional errors, the most frequently occurring prepositional errors were identified. The prepositional error types for each proficiency level were then identified from the corpus. Next, the types and frequency of these errors were compared across the three levels to find out whether the rate of each prepositional error type significantly decreased across the three levels (developmental errors) or remained the same (fossilized errors). How can standard Arabic help students in using English preposition? When we compare the prepositional uses in Arabic and English, we find that there are cases where Arabic and English use similar prepositions to express the same meaning. e.g. the use of from to indicate starting point as in I came from Taiz ,the use of with to indicate company as in she lives with her mother. Direct transfer from Arabic, in this case leads to positive transfer. On the other hand, there are cases where direct transfer leads to negative transfer. e.g. Some from my friends. I will thank him on his advice. These errors could be attributed to the fact that the same form of most Arabic prepositions has more than one meaning, e.g:

Students know only the common meaning of Arabic prepositions to which they appear to know only one English equivalent. This is because of the lack of the knowledge of standard Arabic. By identifying the areas in which negative and positive transfer occur in using English prepositions, it seems that students who understand the different meanings of Arabic prepositions know more equivalents, and therefore, can find a wider areas for positive transfer than those who do not master the Arabic prepositions. For example, by examining the cases in which students misuse the English prepositions on, it appears that students who lack the knowledge of different meanings of Arabic prepos-ition (? l) appear to perform as below: On=

Leave the book on the table. I will thank him on his advice. They told him on everything.

On the other hand, students who learned to use the Arabic preposition / ? l / appear to perform as follows: On, for, about =

Leave the book on the table. I will thank him for his advice. They told him about everything.

Another example is the preposition / mln / in and by identifying the different meanings of the Arabic prepositions in the above sentences, we find that the meaning of / mln / in differs from its meaning in in Arabic, the / mln / in " " is called / mln l bt d/. It indicates the starting point from which something starts, (Al-Ansari 1979, Almuradi 1973 Hassan, 1975, Said 1999, Alzagbi 1992, Khafji, 1961). In other words, it expresses a physical movement which can traced clearly.

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It is the equivalent to the preposition from, and both / ml n alebtedda /. From is used to express the same meaning. Understanding its meaning may facilitate the use of the preposition from when it is used: To indicate place or direction from which somebody / something starts. e.g. I will go from Taiz to Aden. To indicate time at which somebody / something starts. e.g. We study from 2 pm till 5 pm every day. To indicate who sent, gave something. e.g. A letter from my brother. To indicate where somebody / something originates. e.g. Im from Yemen . Draw water from a well. To indicate the lower limit of a range, numbers, prices ..etc. e.g. He writes from 10 to 15 letters daily. Tickets cost from 3 to 11 dollars. To indicate distance between two places. e.g. 10 miles from the coast. The / mln / in / mln t bI:h / (partition). (Al-Ansari 1979, Almuradi 1973 Hassan, 1975, Said 1999, Alzagbi 1992, Khafji, 1961). The function of this / mln / is to express the relationship between the part and the whole the member and the body to which that member belongs. However, Kharma and Hajjai (1989:78) argue that Arabic speakers find difficulty in using the English preposition of, because it does not have a counterpart in Arabic language except the /?idafa/ (the genitive case). But, it appears that the justification that they provide for their argument does not govern the different meanings of /mln attab?l:h/ because if we examine the function and the meaning of this / mln / and of we can easily realize that both give the same meaning and are used in the same way. This means that this / mln / is the equivalent to the English

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preposition OF. So, understanding the meaning of / mln / can facilitate learning the use of the preposition OF when it is used: To indicate the material used to make something. e.g. Shirts made of cotton. To indicate what is measured, counted or contained. e.g. A pint of milk. To show the relationship between part and the whole of something. e.g. Five of the team. In dates. e.g. The first of May. After some, many, few, etc e.g. Some of his friends. Few of records. The same can be said about the preposition /bl/ in sentences such as:
. .

By examining these three sentences we find that, although the same preposition /bI/ is used in three sentences, it does not give the same meaning in each sentence/bI/ indicates the tool in , in the second sentences gives the meaning of the place of exchange in . In some cases we find that the same English prepositions can be equivalent to more than one Arabic preposition (depending on the meaning). For example, the English preposition for is the equivalent to both / l / in and / bI / in . So, drawing the students attention to this point may help them to use for correctly in many cas es. However, according to most teachers of English, students usually say : I will write with a pen. Some of them may say

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I will write by a pen.

They usually say

I bought this book with twenty dollars. But, students do not say: I met him with / by the mosque. ( they usually use the preposition in in such case). Consequently, this raises another question: Why do Arabs students use the same English preposition in some cases and use different English prepositions in others? From the point of view of this study, the answer to this question might be summarized as follows: Although, both English and Arabic prepositions are polysemous words which have different meanings, it appears that students know only common meaning which is more popular and known than other meanings. Therefore, when the same errors reoccur they are often related to a specific Arabic preposition usage. For example, in sentences like: I will thank him on his advice. They told him on everything, The errors are related to the Arabic preposition / ? la/. The same is true in sentences as : some from my friends. we have lived in Sana'a from 1975 . in which the errors are related to / mln /. The same can be said about the use of with in I bought this book with twenty. In which the use of with is related to the Arabic preposition /b/.It seems that students resort more often to colloquial Arabic than standard Arabic in choosing English prepositions. The example for this is the use of from instead of /monu/ or / mo/ which are not found in colloquial Arabic.

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When students use English preposition, they fall back on the forms of standard Arabic prepositions ( to which they know only one English equivalent in most cases ). Because in some cases as in I came from Taiz, leave the book on the table. Both, Arabic and English prepositions give the same mean-ing. It seems that students apply this as a general rule. In studying preposition errors made by Arab EFL students , zughoul (1979)reached the following conclusions: 1. In some cases the English preposition corresponds exactly to its Arabic equivalent. 2. Sometimes ,in expressing an idea in Arabic , we do not need to use a preposition (or any other word ) to replace the English preposition. 3. Usually students try to memories one main equivalent for each English preposition. While such one to one translation may give the proper English word in a number of cases , there are many instances in which it does not work . 4. The English preposition is not always expressed in Arabic by a preposition , its equivalent may be a different part of speech. 5. English preposition can be attached to verbs or nouns to form units with different meaning . 6. Some usages of English preposition, specially those of at, in, on, are ambiguous and difficult compared with the Arabic preposition which really replaces those prepositions in meaning English prepositions are generally considered difficult to teach to non native speakers, for a variety of reasons: the large number of possible meanings for many prepositions, which change according to the context in which they are used; the lack of a written guide to usage; and, for native Arabic speakers, the commonly-used grammar-translation method of instruction and native language interference. Some potentially more effective approaches to teaching prepositions include C. Kreidler's association approach, A. Hornby's unit method, D. T. Langendoen's rolesubdivisions, R. Close's relationships approach, and G. Pittman's

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demonstrable uses. However, in most of these approaches there is a stress on teaching isolated structures, even when situationalized, and little emphasis on real communication. The result has been inaccuracy in student usage. If communication is a primary goal of English teaching, teachers should begin instruction with real situations that are relevant to the students and concentrate on the prepositions and adverbs the student would need in order to be understood. Linguistic distinctions that students do not need to know should not be taught, errors should not be automatically corrected, and similarities between English and the native language should be pointed out. Prepositions used often in the classroom could be categorized as case, lexical, or unit prepositions for instructional purposes.

CONCLUSION
We find that most students face difficulty in using the English preposition since in spite of the fact that since has two Arabic equivalents / monu /and /mo/). The students usually say * we have lived in Taiz from1975. The use of from instead of since can be due to the fact that both / monu / and / mo/ do not exist in the colloquial Arabic, in which preposition / mln / is always used in such cases. For these it investigates the probability of the existence of prepositions transfer from Standard Arabic into English.

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English prepositions are difficult in the sense that they can have different functions, and the greatest problem faced by Arab learners who learn English as a FL is the correct usage of these prepositions in their writings and speeches. An inappropriate usage of a preposition may change the intended meaning of a sentence entirely. They face situations they do not know how to transfer prepositions from Standard Arabic to the target language . Consequently, while positive transfer takes place when there are similarities between English and one of these varieties, negative transfer occurs whenever there are differences. It is found that Arab learners transfer positively from Standard Arabic and the result is a correct usage of English prepositions, and they transfer negatively from Standard Arabic and, as a result, they commit errors in the usage of these prepositions. Hence, Arab learners try to relate the usage of English prepositions to these varieties as sources of their previous knowledge. Yet, there are differences between each one of these varieties and English prepositions usage. Prepositional usage has a relation with each variety specificity. Accordingly, not every English preposition has definite equivalent in each one of these varieties. Thus, Arab learners do not adequately master English prepositions and they rely on their knowledge from Standard Arabic, to choose the correct prepositions. On this basis, English prepositions usage often stands in the way of achieving grammatical fluency and accuracy for Arab learners.

REFERENCE LIST
Hamdallah,R.W.1988.syntactic errors in written English : A Study of errors made by Arab students of English . university of Lancaster, England . Zughoul, M.R.1979 "Teaching English prepositions "English Teaching Forum 17,24, 29 Ibn Hisham, A.Y.1969. Sharh qatr elnada, wabell essada . Edited by M.M.AbdulHamid.Cairo. Keshavarz, M. H. (2005). Contrastive analysis and error analysis. Tehran: Rahnama Publication.

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Those Problematic english Prepositions!... by Bob Grubic C F I B A C I C o n f e r e n c e California .November 13, 2004
The Writer`s Guide to Prepositions 1988 Charles N. Prieur and

Elizabeth Champion Speyer. (2004). Grammar troublespots: A guide for student writers (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jie, X. (2008). Error theories and second language acquisition [Electronic version]. US-China foreign language, 6(1), 35-42. Hasan, A., & Abdullah. I. (2009). The conceptual mapping of the English preposition in into Arabic. European Journal of Social Sciences, (8), 4, 604-613.

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