Arab Educational Information Network

This study is mainly concerned with English nonfinite verbs as one of the common and essential process in the grammar of English on the one hand, and as a problematic area for English foreign language learners on the other hand. Nonfinite verb is any of several verb forms that are not finite verbs; that is, they cannot be as the root of an independent clause. Nonfinite verb forms stated in English are generally infinitives, -ing participles and -ed participles. This study aims at (1) Presenting a material about nonfinite verbs which can be of help to distinguish those types of verbs; (2) Investigating the ability of Iraqi EFL Learners to use nonfinite verbs at the recognition and the production levels and (3) Discovering the types and causes of errors which Iraqi EFL university learners commit in the use of nonfinite verbs. To achieve the aims stated above, the study hypothesizes that Iraqi EFL learners encounter difficulties in using nonfinite verbs due to various factors such as overgeneralization and Interlingual transfer. These hypotheses have been verified through adopting a diagnostic test of two questions. The first question is intended to measure the students‟ performance at recognition level in which they are given complete sentences with two options and they have to identify whether the highlighted verbs are finite or nonfinite verbs. The second question is designed to measure the subjects‟ performance at the production level. The test has been applied to a sample of 50 Iraqi EFL university learners at their fourth year from Departments of English, Colleges of Education for Humanity, Universities of Tikrit, during the academic year 2014-2015. Then the students‟ responses have been collected and analyzed to draw the findings of this study. (Published abstract)