"When it comes to syntax, [Noam] Chomsky is famous for proposing that beneath everysentence in the mind of a speaker is an invisible,

inaudible deep structure, the interface to the mental lexicon. The deep structure is converted by transformational rules into asurface structure that corresponds more closely to what is pronounced and heard. The rationale is that certain constructions, if they were listed in the mind as surface structures, would have to be multiplied out in thousands of redundant variations that would have to have been learned one by one, whereas if the constructions were listed as deep structures, they would be simple, few in number, and economically learned." In transformational grammar, deep structures are generated by phrase-structure rules, and surface structures are derived from deep structures by a series of transformations A deep structure is . . . the underlying form of a sentence, before rules like auxiliary inversion and wh-fronting apply. After all raisings apply, plus relevant morphological andphonological rules (as for forms of do), the result . . . is the linear, concrete, surface structure of sentences, ready to be given phonetic form."

kernel sentence In transformational grammar, a simple declarative construction with only one verb. A kernel sentence is
always active and affirmative. Even a sentence with an adjective, gerund or infinitive is not a kernel sentence. (i) This is a black cow is made of two kernel sentences This is a cow and The cow is black. (ii) I saw them crossing the river is made of I saw them and They were crossing the river, (iii) I want to go is made of I want and I go." "[I]n order to understand a sentence it is necessary to know the kernel sentences from which it originates (more precisely, the terminal strings underlying these kernel sentences) and the phrase structure of each of these elementary components, as well as the transformational history of development of the given sentence from those kernel sentences. The general problem of analyzing the process 'understanding' is thus reduced, in a sense, to the problem of explaining how kernel sentences are understood, these being considered the basic 'content elements' from which the usual, more complex sentences of real life are formed by transformational development."\ [Noam] Chomsky had identified a basic grammatical structure in Syntactic Structures[1957] that he referred to as kernel sentences. Reflecting mentalese, kernel sentences were where words and meaning first appeared in the complex cognitive process that resulted in an utterance. In [Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 1965], Chomsky abandoned the notion of kernel sentences and identified the underlying constituents of sentences asdeep structure.

transformation
A type of syntactic rule or convention that can move an element from one position to another in a senten "Chomsky's grammar is a 'generative grammar of the transformational type.' By that he means that it makes explicit the rules for generating new sentences, not for analyzing existing sentences; the rules themselves provide the analysis. And he means that among the rules are those for transforming one type of sentence into another (affirmative into negative, simple intocompound or complex, and so forth); thetransformations make the relationships among such sentences clear." Example of a Transformation "Passive Agent Deletion. In many instances, we delete the agent in passive sentences, as in sentence 6: 6. The cake was eaten. When the subject agent is not identified, we use an indefinite pronoun to fill the slot where it would appear in the deep structure, as in 6a: 6a. [Someone] ate the cake. This deep structure, however, would result in the surface structure of 6b: 6b. The cake was eaten [by someone]. To account for sentence 6, T-G grammar proposes a deletion rule that eliminates theprepositional phrase containing the subject agent. We can say, therefore, that sentence has undergone two transformations, passive and passive agent deletion."