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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background
What will cross our minds when we hear the word language? People will tend to
answer about communication. Yes, indeed language is a way of how we can understand
other people around us. How can these sentences be written if the pen owner doesn't
even understand language? Although not many people know, at least the pen owner
understands what is the use of the language in his daily life.
There are indeed a variety of languages. And also a variety of objectives and
functions. But certainly there is language because it is used in this world. Does not cross
our minds that actually language is the main menu in our socializing with the
environment. Clear!! With what we can talk if you do not use language. even though we
don't say. Like this article misalya. Not talking about? But in this paper contains
language. Because language is not only to say, but language can also be a symbol or
writing that can be understood by others.
From this small paper I want to outline a little about Transformational Grammar.
What is it like? Not far from our shadow. We often use this system everyday. It's just
that we lack understanding and realize that we have used it. Transformational grammar
deals with changes in linguistic forms that may retain the same meaning. As a simple
example:

 Nikki wrote a story


 A story were written by Nikki

The two sentences above have the same meaning and have similar words. Only
the basic structure is different. Now this is what is called transformational grammar. Can
you understand it ??

Below are some ideas that are often considered to represent the most important
aspects of Chomsky's theory:

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Language has an underlying uniformity (underlying uniformity), and the basic
structure of language is often related to the meaning of a sentence compared to the
surface characteristics of the language.
Language is not a closed system, but a system that is capable of producing new
units (generative).
Within these basic structures there are elements commonly found in all
languages, and those elements may reflect innate organizing principles of cognition.
These organizing principles may directly influence language learning and production.
There are three aspects that describe the contribution of Chomsky's theory to
linguistics: surface structure is part of a sentence that can be fragmented (sigmented)
and labeled using conventional parsing techniques, deep structure is the basic meaning
of a structure, and transformational rules.

B. Purpose
The purposes of this paper are :
1. To explain what the surface structure is
2. To investigate the syntactic system of surface structure.
3. To investigate the constituent types of surface structure

C. Problem formulation
1. What is definition of surface structure?
2. What is the types the syntactic system of surface structure?
3. What is the constituent type of surface structure?

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CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

A. Definition of Surface Structure


In post-structuralist linguistics, Noam Chomsky describes a concept of language
dimensions known as deep structure and surface structure (in Indonesian it is called
Struktur Batin and Struktur Permukaan). This concept offers the classification of
language activities into two layers, namely the upper and lower layers.

Surface Structure means the language spoken or written both in real and only in
the mind of consciousness or in the heart. Deep structure is a representation of the
actual significance of the language form. In other words, the deep structure is the place
where mental processes actually occur while the surface structure is a form of language
based on the deep structure. The Surface and deep structure can be studied based on
the semantic aspects (meaning) and syntactic aspects (grammar).
To examine it syntactically, we must understand about genarative syntax.
Generative syntax always refers to the correct grammar of a language. That language is
the structure of the human mind. The structure of the human mind itself naturally has a
'conscience towards grammar'. No matter how messed up a sentence is, there is
actually a regularity of the sentence as the idea or the real intention of the sentence.
For example in Indonesian, for example someone feels not knowing about
something will say:
(i) "I don't know" (Saya Tidak tahu)

(ii) "don't know me" (tidak tahu saya)

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(iii) "don't know"(tidak tahu)

(iv) "you know" (tau deh)

All of them are accepted in the rules of communication. But of the four
sentences that were ejected as the Surface structure, all of them only have one true
meaning of the deep structure, the sentence (i) "I don't know". Its nature is certain,
because the structure of the minds of Indonesian speakers in the minds of their
conscience will follow the correct Indonesian syntactic rules that are based on standard
SPO, unless there is an abnormality in the language learning process that they obtain.
In the upper layers, the minimum requirement for a complete sentence - that is,
consisting of a subject, a predicate, or if an object is needed for a transitive sentence -
can be removed or degraded according to the acceptance that applies in the actor's
communication style. The sentence (iv) "tau deh" will be understood as (i) "I don't
know" by all speakers of standard Indonesian. Then changes can also be made to the
syntactic order, such as sentence (ii) "don't know me" (subject behind after predicate),
but still does not eliminate the principle of function in communication alias can still be
understood as (i) "I don't know".
Is the Generative Syntax already?

Go to the deep structure vs. surface structure, okay?

There is the most famous example:

(i) the dog bites people

(ii) the person bites the dog

(iii) the person was bitten by a dog

Although in terms of language (upper layer / surface structure) the sentences (i)
and (ii) have the same subject, predicate and object structure, but in a real sense (lower
layer / deep structure), the same is the sentence (i) and (iii).

The next example relates to ambiguity:

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"The naughty colonel's wife died."

As an upper layer, syntactically perfect, but in contrast to the previous example,


this sentence has two possible lower layers; (i) naughty refers to the colonel's wife, or
(ii) naughty refers to his colonel. Depending on the intention of the speaker in his heart.
Now, we can conclude that variations on an intention in the inner layer can be
expressed in two ways in the upper layer. On the contrary, from a similar upper layer
order, we may have two or more interpretations of meaning at the bottom layer.

B. The Syntactic Rules


Transformational-generative grammar
In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Noam Chomsky wrote, "A transformation is
defined by the structural analysis to which it applies and the structural change that it
effects on these strings."
 Transformations: processes that change the deep structure into surface
structure.
 Generative: using phrase structure rules, so can produce (generate) infinite
sentences.
 a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the
course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a
sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts
deep structures into surface structures.

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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?
 A transformation takes a structure and changes it to form another structure
 Thus transformations are capable of relating structures
 Applying the passive transformation we delete the subject, move the object and insert
auxiliary and morpheme to get:
o Mary was loved

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CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION

Surface Structure means the language spoken or written both in real and only in
the mind of consciousness or in the heart. Deep structure is a representation of the
actual significance of the language form. In other words, the inner structure is the place
where mental processes actually occur while the surface structure is a form of language
based on the inner layers. The upper and lower layers can be studied based on the
semantic aspects (meaning) and syntactic aspects (grammar).

In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Noam Chomsky wrote, "A transformation is
defined by the structural analysis to which it applies and the structural change that it
effects on these strings."
 Transformations: processes that change the deep structure into surface
structure.
 Generative: using phrase structure rules, se can produce (generate) infinite
sentences.
 a rule of transformational grammar that relates two phrase markers in the
course of a derivation from the deep to the surface syntactic representation of a
sentence, as by reordering, inserting, or deleting elements; a rule that converts
deep structures into surface structures.

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