Transformational Grammar - Deep Structure and Surface Structure

Deep Structure and Surface Structure

Linguistics
Theoretical linguistics
  • Cognitive linguistics
  • Generative linguistics
  • Functional theories of grammar
  • Quantitative linguistics
  • Phonology
  • Morphology
  • Morphophonology
  • Syntax
  • Lexis
  • Semantics
  • Pragmatics
  • Graphemics
  • Orthography
  • Semiotics
Descriptive linguistics
  • Anthropological linguistics
  • Comparative linguistics
  • Historical linguistics
  • Etymology
  • Graphetics
  • Phonetics
  • Sociolinguistics
Applied and
experimental linguistics
  • Computational linguistics
  • Evolutionary linguistics
  • Forensic linguistics
  • Internet linguistics
  • Language acquisition
  • Language assessment
  • Language development
  • Language education
  • Linguistic anthropology
  • Neurolinguistics
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Second-language acquisition
Related articles
  • History of linguistics
  • Linguistic prescription
  • List of linguists
  • List of unsolved problems in linguistics
Portal

In 1957, Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures, in which he developed the idea that each sentence in a language has two levels of representation — a deep structure and a surface structure. The deep structure represented the core semantic relations of a sentence, and was mapped on to the surface structure (which followed the phonological form of the sentence very closely) via transformations. Chomsky believed there are considerable similarities between languages' deep structures, and that these structures reveal properties, common to all languages that surface structures conceal. However, this may not have been the central motivation for introducing deep structure. Transformations had been proposed prior to the development of deep structure as a means of increasing the mathematical and descriptive power of context-free grammars. Similarly, deep structure was devised largely for technical reasons relating to early semantic theory. Chomsky emphasizes the importance of modern formal mathematical devices in the development of grammatical theory:

But the fundamental reason for inadequacy of traditional grammars is a more technical one. Although it was well understood that linguistic processes are in some sense "creative," the technical devices for expressing a system of recursive processes were simply not available until much more recently. In fact, a real understanding of how a language can (in Humboldt's words) "make infinite use of finite means" has developed only within the last thirty years, in the course of studies in the foundations of mathematics. —Aspects of the Theory of Syntax

Read more about this topic:  Transformational Grammar

Famous quotes containing the words deep, structure and/or surface:

    “When you realize how hard it is to know the truth about yourself, you understand that even the most exhaustive and well-meaning autobiography, determined to tell the truth, represents, at best, a guess. There have been times in my life when I felt incredibly happy. Life was full. I seemed productive. Then I thought,”Am I really happy or am I merely masking a deep depression with frantic activity?” If I don’t know such basic things about myself, who does?”
    —Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)

    “The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “A society which allows an abominable event to burgeon from its dungheap and grow on its surface is like a man who lets a fly crawl unheeded across his face or saliva dribble unstemmed from his mouth—either epileptic or dead.”
    —Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)