Surface and Deep Structures in Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Abstract

This textual investigation assumes that the select sentences excerpted from Desiderata by Max Ehrmann reveal surface and deep structures in linearity. The method used in this study is a structural analysis and description of constituents. The structural analysis involves the immediate constituents and the semantic components of the sentences. The description of constituents involves the transformation of sentences according to the case. The study shows that sentence 1 is a compound sentence made up of verb, adverb, preposition, article, noun, conjunction, article, noun, conjunction, verb, relative pronoun, noun, expletive pronoun, modal auxiliary, main verb, preposition, and noun; sentence 2 is a simple sentence made up of adverb, adjective, adverb, adjective, preposition, noun, verb, preposition, adjective, noun, preposition, adjective, and noun; sentence 3 is a compound sentence made up of verb, pronoun, noun, adverb, conjunction, adverb, conjunction, verb, preposition, and noun; sentence 4 is a compound sentence made up of verb, adjective, conjunction, adjective, noun, pronoun, verb, noun, preposition, article, and noun; and sentence 5 is a compound-complex sentence made up of conjunction, pronoun, verb, pronoun, preposition, noun, pronoun, modal auxiliary, verb, adjective, conjunction, adjective, conjunction, adverb, pronoun, modal auxiliary, verb, adjective, conjunction, adjective, noun, conjunction, and pronoun. The functions revealed in the five sentences are to offer a piece of advice with the notion of telling someone what to do and to express a situation in which the outcome is likely to happen in the future with the notion of telling someone that under a certain condition a specific result will likely to happen in the future. The sentences transform with nominative, possessive, and objective focuses. Based on the findings, it has been concluded that the five select sentences excerpted from Desiderata by Max Ehrmann reveal surface and deep structure in linearity. Recommendations include future research topics that may be investigated by English language researchers and the significance of teaching students of English as a second language surface and deep structure analyses to provide them with samples of how sentences are crafted following the linearity of constituents that express intended meanings, and of how sentences are transformed with different cases.