Definition of deep structure in US English:
deep structure
nounˈdēp ˌstrək(t)SHərˈdip ˌstrək(t)ʃər
(in generative grammar) the abstract representation of the syntactic structure of a sentence.
rules of transformation change deep structure into surface structure
Contrasted with surface structure
Example sentencesExamples
- This would have to be the mythical deep structure of linguistics.
- Chomsky's initial proposals, in Syntactic Structures and Aspects, had distinguished between the surface structure of a sentence and the deep structure, from which the surface structure is derived by transformations.
- The first is ‘universal grammar,’ the Enlightenment belief that the deep structure of language is uniform across languages.
- The theory postulates that the two sentences have the same order in deep structure, but the question transformation changes the order to that in surface structure.
- According to his theory, humans produce language through a deep structure that enables them to generate and transfer their own grammar to any other language.