One of the most important concepts proposed by Chomsky is

the concept of surface anddeep structure. The Generativism paradigm claims

that the concept of structural analysis proposed by Structuralism paradigm is too
swallow, it only reaches the level of surface structure. Surface structure can be
defined as the syntactic form they take as actual sentences. In the other words, it is
forms of sentences resulted from modification/ transformation. Consider these
sentences:

(1) You close the door.

(2) The door is closed by you.
(3) Close the door!

The first sentence is active, second is passive, and the last is imparative. However, if
you take a look those closely, you will find that those three are very closely related,
even identical. They seem to be identical, since they have the same undelying
abstract representation that is called deep structure. It is defined as an abstract
level of structural organization in which all the elements determining structural
interpretation are represented. If you want to analyze the relation of those three
sentences, the first you have to know about the deepstructure of them, since
deep structure is the input of transformation rules. We cannot apply
transformation rules if you dont have deep structure. transformation rules are
sets of rules which will change or move constitiuents in the structures derive from
the phrase structure rules.

e.g.
The DS (deep structure)

(2)
SD 1234
(structure describtion) : 3 4 + be 2+en 1
SC (Structural change) The door is closed by you
:
SS (Surface structure)
:
Note: the SC is passive transformation rules
(3) SD: 1234
SC: 0234
SS: Close the door!
Note: 0 is deletion
From the above example, it can be concluded that deep structure then is a pure
representation of thematic relations. Anything which is interpreted as the subject or
object of a given predicate will be in the subject or object position of that predicate at
Deepstructure no matter where it is found at Surface structure.

What is the difference between surface and deep layer in language?

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The terms "surface layer" and "deep layer" refer to different levels that information
goes through in the language production system. For example, imagine that you see
a dog chasing a mailman. When you encode this information, you create a
representation that includes three pieces of information: a dog, a mailman, and the
action chasing. This information exists in the mind of the speaker as a "deep"
structure. If you want to express this information linguistically, you can, for example,
produce a sentence like "The dog is chasing the mailman." This is the "surface"
layer: it consists of the words and sounds produced by a speaker (or writer) and
perceived by a listener (or reader). You can also produce a sentence like "The
mailman is being chased by a dog" to describe the same event -- here, the order in
which you mention the two characters (the "surface" layer) is different from the first
sentence, but both sentences are derived from the same "deep" representation.
Linguists propose that you can perform movement operations to transform the
information encoded in the "deep" layer into the "surface" layer, and refer to these
movement operations as linguistic rules. Linguistic rules are part of the grammar of a
language and must be learned by speakers in order to produce grammatically
correct sentences.
Image: Duncan Rawlinson
Rules exist for different types of utterances. Other examples of rules, or movement
operations between "deep" and "surface" layers, include declarative sentences (You
have a dog) and their corresponding interrogative sentences (Do you have a dog?).
Here, the movement operations include switching the order of the first two words of
the sentence.

What You See: Surface Structure Defined

Many of us might've hated talking about grammatical rules or concepts in English
class. If you're one of those people, you should definitely be glad your teacher never
quizzed you on transformational grammar, which is a mode of linguistic analysis
that identifies the relationships between sentence elements through processes or
rules of gradual cognitive recognition, i.e., transformations. One of these sentence
elements is the topic of this lesson and is known as surface structure, or the form
of a sentence that's seen or heard.
The concept of surface structure and many other aspects of transformational
grammar were popularized byNoam Chomsky, an American philosopher, cognitive
scientist, and linguistics professor at MIT. In Syntactic Structures from 1957,
Chomsky basically said that a sentence's surface structure is exactly what we read
on the page or hear a person say.
To get a better idea of exactly what surface structure is, let's compare it to another
sentence element Chomsky identified as deep structure, which represents a
sentence's most basic units of meaning. For instance, these units might be 'I (tell)
you' and 'you (no) (go).' Obviously, you wouldn't want to write 'you no go' on a school
assignment, so this deep structure has to undergo some transformations to make a
surface structure we can make more sense of.
Some of these transformations might include conjugating verbs, inflecting nouns or
pronouns, i.e., who, whom, whose, or altering word order. They might also involve
adding auxiliaries, i.e., would, should, or other framing elements, such as
conjunctions, prepositions, or other parts of speech. So, if we were to put the units of
the deep structure we saw earlier together and transformed them, we could come up
with a surface structure that looked something like: 'I told you that you shouldn't go.'
Now that we've seen how deep and surface structures relate to one another, let's
take a look at some different surface structures to see how they're related!

Syntax

Syntax : the arrangements of words to show their relationship to one another in a

sentence.

Syntax rules govern proper sentence structure.

In school, we learned preferred syntactical rules, like isnt is preferable to

aint (prescriptive approach)

Psycholinguists analyze syntax at the descriptive level :

A. James asked the woman about her headache.

B. About the James headache woman her asked.

Same Lexical Information in both sentences, yet we prefer the structure in A

Noam Chomsky and Transformational Grammar

Chomsky developed Transformational Grammar to replace Left-to-Right

Grammar

Major Factors of Transformational Grammar

Every Sentence exists on two levels :

Surface Structure : the actual spoken sentence.

Deep Structure : underlying meaning of the sentence.

A single deep structure idea can be expressed in many different Surface structures :

Deep Structure : Boy kisses Girl

Surface structure : The boy kissed the girl.

The boy was kissing the girl. The girl was kissed by the boy.

Surface and Deep Structure

The deep structure gives the semantic component of a sentence, while the surface
structure gives the proper phonological information to express that thought.

How do we develop these two levels of sentence construction ?

Chomsky has proposed two sets of Rules :

1. Phrase Structure Grammar : these rules

dictate the form of the deep structure.

If you have ever diagrammed sentences in English (or foreign language classes),
than you have explicitly used phrase structure rules before.

Phrase Structure Grammar

Phrase structure rules specifies both the necessary phrases for proper sentence
construction, and the specific word ordering that should be followed within these
sentence phrases.

Phrase Structure Grammar forces a hierarchical arrangement among different parts

of sentences.

Why cant we just use phrase structure rules to explain language ?

Phrase Structure Rules can not help distinguish among ambiguous sentences :

Visiting relatives can be a nuisance.

The shooting of the hunters was horrible.

To account for these shortcomings in Phrase Structure Grammar, Chomsky

proposed an additional level of rules which assists in translating deep structures to
surface structure sentences.

Transformational Rules : these rules help transform the deep structure into the
surface structure.
The manipulation of verb tenses is one aspect of transformational rules.

Present tense, past tense, subjunctive, past perfect, future tense are all derived
through transformational rules.

Meaning in Language

Semantic Factors in Language

Morpheme : smallest unit of meaning of language.

S, er, ing, are all morphemes, just as the word car is a single morpheme.

car is a free morpheme

s, er is a bound morpheme

In general, multimorphemic words take longer to recognize and comprehend than

single morphemic words.

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

wall

Case Grammar (Fillmore, 68)

Case grammar uses semantic case analysis to find the link between syntactically
distinct sentences.

The janitor will open the door with the key.

The key will open the door.

Key is a D.O. in the first sentence and a Noun in the second.

However, the relationship between Key, Open, and Door is identical in both
sentences.

Case grammar allows a word to have the same semantic role, despite having a
different syntactic designation.

Case analysis looks at relationships between concepts in terms of :

Agents : Who ?

Time : specifies tense

Instrument : The what

Relation : the action

Recipient : to what

The case grammar approach is supported by normal readers difficulties with

ambiguous sentences where the obvious syntactic structure results in an
unintelligible sentence.

The tenant delivered the junk mail threw it in the trash

Case Grammar specifies two processes take place during normal comprehension :

1. We start comprehension immediately : We do not wait for the end of the sentence
in order to begin our understanding

2. This analysis is a process of assigning roles to each of the concepts within the
sentence.

However, we eventually can overcome the garden path problems by reassigning the
roles within the sentence.

So ultimately, meaning takes precedence over form.

Another example of how language processing is dominated by top-down processing.

 Reconstructive Memory

The interaction of Episodic and Semantic Memory

Our memory for events is substantially influenced by previous knowledge

(conceptually driven processing)

Bartlett (1932) wanted to understand how meaningful stimuli was remembered

:

Typical Bartlett paradigm :

Subject studies some meaningful reading : such as a story or a

poem

Then, they must recall the material several times, at different

intervals.

Bartlett was able to conclude that memory is not a static picture retrieved from
the memory vaults, but an elaborate reconstruction .

Reconstructive Memory

We construct (or recall) a memory by combining elements form the original

material together with existing knowledge.

Which aspects of his results led Bartlett (1932) to this conclusion ?

Omissions : The specific information which subjects typically failed to recall :

Specific Names, places and specific events within the story are frequently left
out.

Normalization and Rationalization : As subjects recalled the story over and

over, they alter the story to make it seem more reasonable or understandable -
-- They edit the story so it becomes consistent with their own understanding of
the world.

These two factors led Bartlett to propose the idea of "schemas" or mental
scripts.
Schema Theory

Schemata are mental templates which we use to perceive and understand our
environment.

Schemata provide context and predictability to novel situations.

As we grow, our schemata becomes more numerous, more detailed, and more
reliable.

Schema : a stored framework or body of knowledge

Schemas hold together general thematic information.

Common Schema which develop early in life : Restaurant schemas, school

schemas, birthday party schemas, movie theater schemas, grocery shopping
schemas.

Other studies showing shematic influence:

Sulin and Dooling (1974) : Students read a paragraph concerning :

Gerald Martins Rise to Power

Adolf Hitlers Rise to Power

Five minutes after reading the passage, subjects are shown sentences and
asked,

Which sentences appeared in the reading ?

Those who read the passage with Adolf Hitlers name were much more likely
to "false alarm" to sentences which contain knowledge consistent with the
history of Adolf Hitler.

"Hitler was obsessed by the desire to conquer the world"

A second experiment of Sulin & Dooling (74)

Read a passage about a problem child named Carol Harris or Helen Keller;

Carol was stubborn, violent,

Test for sentence recall one week later :

5 % false alarm rate to :

Carol Harris was deaf, dumb and blind.

50 % false alarm rate one week later to:

Helen Keller was deaf, dumb, and blind.

Both experiments show this strong influence of previous knowledge on our

ability to remember written passages.