deep structure

A central theoretical term in TRANSFORMATIONAL GRAMMAR; opposed to SURFACE STRUCTURE. ‘Deep structure’ (or deep grammar) is the abstract SYNTACTIC REPRESENTATION of a SENTENCE – an UNDERLYING LEVEL of structural organization which specifies all the factors governing the way the sentence should be interpreted. (The basic notion has also been referred to, in various theoretical contexts, as D-STRUCTURE, UNDERLYING structure, BASE structure, REMOTE STRUCTURE and INITIAL structure.) This level provides information which enables us to distinguish between the alternative interpretations of sentences which have the same surface form (i.e. they are AMBIGUOUS), e.g. Flying planes can be dangerous, where flying planes can be related to two underlying sentences, Planes which fly . . . and To fly planes . . . It is also a way of relating sentences which have different surface forms but the same underlying MEANING, as in the relationship between ACTIVE and PASSIVE structures, e.g. The panda chased the man as opposed to The man was chased by the panda. Transformational grammars would derive one of these alternatives from the other, or perhaps both from an even more abstract (‘deeper’) underlying structure. The various grammatical relations in such sentences can then be referred to as the ‘deep SUBJECT’, ‘deep OBJECT’, etc. (contrasted with ‘surface subject’, etc.). It is also possible to compute the ‘depth’ at which a transformation operates, by referring to the number of stages in a DERIVATION before it applies, and some attempt has been made to correlate this notion with the COMPLEXITY of a sentence.

In some generative studies, the role of deep structure has been called into question, it being suggested that a separate level of underlying syntactic organization between surface structure and meaning is unnecessary and misleading. It is also possible to find the term used in the general sense of ‘underlying structural interpretation’, without commitment to a specific interpretation in terms of transformational grammar.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يطلق باقة من النشاطات الرقمية الخاصة بشهر المحرم

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تختتم السلسلة الأولى لمشروع المحاضرات القرآنية العاشورائية في بابل

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تسلّم راية العزاء إلى تجمّع مواكب محافظة الديوانية

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يواصل إقامة المجالس الحسينية ضمن سلسلة (بيوت النعيم)

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

تناول الجبن.. مفيد للجسم أم خطر يهدد صحتك؟

طبيبة أسنان تحذر.. لا تتجاهل هذه العلامة بعد التنظيف

يجب أن تأكل المزيد من الشمام هذا الصيف.. إليك السبب ؟

تأثير صحي كبير.. كم بيضة يجب أن تتناول يوميا؟

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

أداء خلايا البيروفسكايت الشمسية تحت الماء قد يزيد كفاءة تحويل الكهرباء

مسافة الأمان: أساس القيادة الآمنة وتجنب الحوادث

هل القيادة السريعة تعني استهلاك اكثر للوقود؟

لماذا يعتبر كوكب المريخ غير صالح للحياة؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Word Order- Classifiers and phrasal dependents in DP

Word order- Suffixal Pl and Art

Syntax Word order and restrictive vs. nonrestrictive modification

Syntax

Language Mixture—Grammar

Change in grammar and pronunciation

Word order

Grammaticalization.

Convergence in the Balkans

Did we lose the perfect tense already?

It’s grammaticalization, innit?

Haugen’s model