Surface and Deep Structure

Surface and Deep Structure

By PAZ ABARCA

The children put the toy in the box.

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The tall boy spilled his milk on the desk.

William Shakespeare wrote many amazing plays.

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Romeo and Julieta were in love.​

Develop the following Phrase Structure Diagrams

Review PS Diagrams

It refers to concepts, thoughts, ideas & feelings. (Meaning)

Deep Structure

It refers to the words / language we use to represent the deep structure. (Grammar)

Surface Structure

Surface and Deep Structures

These terms were introduced by Noam Chomsky as a part of his work on transformational grammar.

“I bought colourful clothes”.

• How many clothes?

• Which types?

• What colours?

• Which clothes did I discarded while buying the ones I bought?

• Where did I buy them from?

• Who I was with when I bought the clothes?

• What was the overall experience of buying these clothes

• How I felt while buying these clothes?

• What were the factors based on which I bought some clothes and discarded others?

• How much did it cost?

The process of transforming the deep structure to surface structure

Who? and How do I know exactly?

“Everyone hates me”.

• Deleted information

• Generalization​

• Distortion​

Aspects

Why is it important to learn about deep and surface structure?

​Because of ambiguity.

For representing the right meaning of the sentence.​

“Speaking to you as an intelligent person” is a surface structure that could represent two different deep structures. Does the sentence represent a deep structure where:

• I think of you as an intelligent person? or

• I think of myself as an intelligent person who is speaking to you?

A particular surface structure sentence can be used to represent multiple deep structures.

“I bought colourful clothes” and “Colourful clothes were bought by me” are two different surface structure sentences that mean exactly the same thing

A particular deep structure can be represented by multiple surface structure sentences.

Because of the nature of language

“My spouse’s parents treat my children differently because they are handicapped.”

How do you understand it?

Who is handicapped?

Is the treatment favourably ​or unfavourably?

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Deep Structures are generated by Phrase Structure Rules

The rules may also be represented in the form of a tree diagram.

S -- NP VP

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S is rewritten as NP followed by a VP​

PSG