English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
B11.2 Grammar beneath the sentence
B11 Beyond and beneath the sentence
Section B Development
The idea that there is grammar ’hidden’ beneath sentences may seem strange, but we have already seen lots of evidence to suggest that what we see or hear on the surface of language is not ’the real thing’. First of all, we have recognised that sentences are not made up of strings of words; rather, words are grouped together into phrases, and phrases into clauses, and clauses into sentences. In other words language is not linear; it is two-dimensional (at least). Furthermore, the ways in which units can be grouped into larger units are governed by the rules of grammar.
To take an example, compare these two major, simple sentences:
a) She ran over the road.
b) She ran over a pedestrian.
On the surface these sentences seem to have a similar structure; the only apparent difference is in the noun phrases at the end. Yet in fact they are quite different. Using clause elements (see A8) we would analyse them as
a) She (S) ran (V) over the road (A).
b) She (S) ran over (V) a pedestrian (Od).
The central difference is that over in b) goes with the verb ran, while in a) it goes with the road in a prepositional phrase. In a) it is a preposition, in b) a particle as part of a phrasal verb; as we saw in B7, this particle could be placed at the end, while the preposition could not. Of course, there is also the difference between the adverbial in a) and the object in b).
Deep and surface structure
But when we talk of grammar being hidden, we are not simply referring to links between words that cannot be seen on the surface. There are other aspects that may be hidden. For example, in this sentence
I want him to tell me the truth.
while him is in the objective case (representing the object of want), it also represents the ’hidden’ subject of the non-finite verb tell (see A10).
We can explain this and other phenomena by making a distinction between ’surface structure’ and ’deep structure’. In the above example there is no surface structure subject of tell, but there is in deep structure.
The distinction between surface and deep structure can account for a number of problems:
□ cases of ambiguity: I saw the man with the telescope.
Here with the telescope can either go with (’postmodify’) the man (the man had a telescope), or be a separate adverbial element, indicating that the telescope was used to see the man.
□ why sentences which look alike really are not, for example:
She is eager to please.
She is easy to please.
On the surface these two sentences appear to be have the same structure: SVP, with the predicative consisting of an adjective with an infinitive complement. However, in the first sentence she is the deep structure subject of please, which is intransitive, whereas in the second she is the deep surface object of please (’something pleases her’), which is of course transitive.
□ why sentences which do not look alike really are, e.g. actives and passives:
I wrote it vs it was written by me
□ why elements which are present really are not, i.e. meaningless ’dummy’ elements which are introduced to make a sentence grammatically acceptable: e.g. the dummy auxiliary do: Do you believe her?
e.g. dummy subjects: It’s raining.
Here we can suggest that there is no subject in deep structure and that it is introduced in surface structure to satisfy the rule that English clauses must have a subject.
□ why units which are not present on the surface really are: see proforms and ellipsis above
□ why words which go together are not always next to each other; one unit may be split up into two, separated by another unit:
e.g. phrasal verbs: He picked the ball up.
e.g. verb phrases in interrogatives: Can you come?
e.g. stranded prepositions in interrogatives, passives and relative and nominal clauses
Who you were speaking to?
Activity B11.2
Explain this joke (told by Groucho Marx) using the concept of ambiguity.
Yesterday I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll never know.
Activity B11.3
Explain the deep structure difference between this pair of sentences, using the concepts of clause elements and transitivity.
1. She has an ability to perform.
2. She has a function to perform.