APA Dictionary of Psychology

deep structure

Updated on 04/19/2018

in anatomy, any organ or tissue that is located beneath the surface layers of the body, such as the heart, liver, or kidney.
in transformational generative grammar, an abstract base form of a sentence in which the logical and grammatical relations between the constituents are made explicit. The deep structure generates the surface structure of a sentence through transformations, such as changes in word order or the addition or deletion of elements. Also called base structure.

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