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Deep Structure and Surface Structure

The document discusses Noam Chomsky's concepts of deep structure and surface structure in linguistics. Deep structure refers to the underlying meaning and conceptual representation, while surface structure refers to the actual words and syntax used to convey that meaning. Transformational grammar assigns deep and surface structures to sentences to show how they are related. Differences in surface structure can obscure an underlying common deep structure.

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subramani muthusamy
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449 views

Deep Structure and Surface Structure

The document discusses Noam Chomsky's concepts of deep structure and surface structure in linguistics. Deep structure refers to the underlying meaning and conceptual representation, while surface structure refers to the actual words and syntax used to convey that meaning. Transformational grammar assigns deep and surface structures to sentences to show how they are related. Differences in surface structure can obscure an underlying common deep structure.

Uploaded by

subramani muthusamy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DEEP STRUCTURE

AND SURFACE
STRUCTURE

Dr.VMS
NOAM CHOMSKY 
 deep structure refers to concepts, thoughts,
ideas & feelings

  surface structure refers to the words /


language we use to represent the deep
structure.
DS & SS
 The surface structure is actually produced
structure. It refers to the sentence as it is
pronounced or written. 
  The deep structure is the abstract structure
that allows the native speaker of a language
to know what the sentence means. 
DS & SS
  deep structure expresses the semantic
contents of a sentence
 surface structure of a sentence determines
its phonetic form
TG IN DS & SS
 Transformational grammar assigns a “deep
structure” and a “surface structure” to show
the relationship of such sentences. 
DS & SS
 The deep structure is an abstract level of
structural organization in which all the
elements determining structural
interpretation are represented.
 Sentences that have alternative
interpretations
 Sentences that have different surface forms
but have the same underlying meaning.
 Surface structure= how the sentence is
actually represented
DS & SS
 How superficially different sentences are
closely related?
 -Charlie broke the window.
 -The window was broken by Charlie
 -Charlie who broke the window.
 -Was the window broken by Charlie?

 Difference in their surface structure =


difference in syntactic forms
 BUT they have the same ‘deep’ or underlying
structure
STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY
 How superficially similar sentences are
different? (multiple meanings)
 E.g. Annie whacked the man with an
umbrella
 Same surface structure but different
deep structure
 The boy saw the man with a telescope
 The question is: What is the scope of
"with the telescope"? Does it modify only
"the man" or does it modify "saw the
man"?
DS

 The notion of deep structure can be


especially helpful in
explaining ambiguous utterances; e.g., “Flyin
g airplanes can be dangerous” may have a
deep structure, or meaning, like “Airplanes
can be dangerous when they fly” or “To fly
airplanes can be dangerous.
TRANSFORMATION
 Visiting doctors can be nuisance.
 Deep structure:
 1.We visit doctors. It can be nuisance.

 2. Doctors visit us. They can be nuisance.


SURFACE STRUCTURE
 Identifying words,
 reading fluently Grapho-Phonic System
Letter/sound knowledge, alphabetic principle,
phonemic awareness, decoding Lexical System
Visual word recognition based on frequent visual
exposure to words Visual memory for all words
Syntactic System Understanding of language
structures at the word, sentence, paragraph and
whole text level (usually auditory
DEEP STRUCTURE SYSTEMS
 Comprehend -
 the gist of the story deeply and probe ideas
 Semantic System Understanding word meanings from
literal to subtle,
 experiences/associations
 word choice in writing Schematic System
 Constructing meaning at the whole text level;
 themes, ideas and concepts, knowledge,
 sharing and applying meaning;
 artistic, and dramatic means;
 writing for specific purposes
 revising thinking based on interactions with others
PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES

 S = NP + VP
 VP = V + NP
 NP = det + N
TRANSFORMATIONAL RULES
 • Transformational rules is a syntactic rule
that applies to an underlying phrase
structure tree of sentence.
 • It derives a new structure by moving or
inserting elements.
 • It is a way to capture the relationship
between a declaration and question.
TRANSFORMATIONAL RULES
 Phrase structure rules represent ‘deep’
structure- always generate structures with
fixed word order.
 Mary saw George recently
 Recently Mary saw George
 Transformational rules= take a specific part
and attach it in another place
 You will help Cathy
 Will you help Cathy?
AMBIGUITY
 An ambiguous sentence is a sentence that
has two meanings. Some sentences are
ambiguous because they contain a word that
is ambiguous. Such cases are called lexical
ambiguities (the lexicon is just the set of
words in a language). By contrast, some
sentences are ambiguous without containing
any ambiguous words. These cases can be
explained when it is observed that the
sentences in question can be given two
distinct syntactic trees, leading to what is
called a structural ambiguity.
STRUCTURAL VS. LEXICAL
AMBIGUITIES
 1. John is sitting near the bank.
 a. Meaning
 1: bank = financial institution b. Meaning
 2: bank = slope at the side of a river
 (1) has two meanings, which appear to be
reducible to the two meanings of the word
'bank'.
STRUCTURAL VS. LEXICAL
AMBIGUITIES
  2. Mary will hit the student with the book
 a. Meaning
 1: Mary will hit the student. She'll do so with
the book. (=The hitting is done with the
book) b. Meaning
 2: Mary will hit the student who is holding
the book. (=The student is holding the book)
☞ None of the words in (2) is ambiguous.

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