(in transformational grammar) the underlying logical relationships of the elements of a phrase or sentence.
（转换生成语法用语）深层结构。与SURFACE STRUCTURE 相对
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.
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.
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.
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.