Surface structure
The surface structure is the central theoretical term in transformational grammar. This term is opposed to the deep structure. The ‘surface structure’ of a sentence is the final stage in the syntactic representation of a sentence, which gives the input to the phonological component of the grammar. It consequently most firmly corresponds to the sentence structure we articulate and hear. Analyzing a surface string of morphemes via component analysis is a universal procedure indicating many crucial facts about linguistic structure; but it by no means indicates everything; for example, it cannot explain how we recognize definite ambiguous sentences or how we intuitively connect sentences having different surface forms but the same basic meaning. For such reasons, linguists in the late 1950s postulated a deep or ‘underlying’ structure for sentences – a level of structural organization in which all the factors determining structural interpretation are defined and interrelated. Surface grammar is sometimes used as an informal term for the superficial properties of the sentence [Crystal, p. 466-467].
A surface structure consists of the collection of words and sounds that we articulate and hear in a sentence; a deep structure is an abstract and underlying structure in language. A single sentence may have many different surface forms and features yet have the same meaning [Cuddon, p. 686].
The surface structure is the syntactic structure most obviously assignable to a particular sentence. Every sentence in every language has some kind of syntactic structure. Consider the following English example: Susie is hard to please. Now, while the structure assigned to this sentence may vary somewhat, depending upon the analyst and the framework used, the majority view would probably analyze it as follows: it consists of a subject noun phrase Susie, and a predicate verb phrase is hard to please; the latter in turn consists of a popular verb is and an adjective phrase hard to please; the adjective phrase, in turn, consists of an adjective hard and a verb phrase to please. We can represent this structure schematically as follows: [Susie] [[is] [[hard] [to please]]]. Now, this structure is the surface structure of the sentence: that is, it is the syntactic structure that we would most naturally assign to this sentence. In many theories of grammar, this is the only syntactic structure that would be assigned. However, it is obvious that the meaning of the sentence relates to this structure in an inquisitive way: this is a statement about pleasing Susie, and hence, in some semantic or logical sense, Susie appears to be, not the subject of is, but rather the object of pleasing [Trask, p. 200].
⠀ Cuddon J.A. (2013). A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
⠀ David Crystal. (2008). A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6th Edition. New-Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
⠀ Trask R.L. (1999). Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge.