surface structure: Meaning and Definition of

sur'face struc"ture

Pronunciation: [key]
— Ling. Ling.(in transformational-generative grammar)
  1. a structural representation of the final syntactic form of a sentence, as it exists after the transformational component has modified a deep structure. Cf.
  2. the string of words that is actually produced.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.