Structure, . . .duh

Doh!

Syntax involves the structure of our language. What kind of structure is needed for "duh" or "Doh!"? "Duh" is described in dictionaries as an "interjection". However, it is used as an entire sentence.

When examining language we need to consider the original, indicative sentence people create in their internal mentalese. Linguists would say the structure for this straight-forward sentence is the "deep structure" (or as Pinker prefers, the "d-structure"1 ) of the utterance. However, a number of rule-bound transformations serve to change our original simple sentences into interesting and varied utterances. Because there is an underlying and simple structure to all our sentences, we can understand each other. Because our original mentalese sentences are transformed into something besides the simple indicative, we do not bore one another, but indulge our capacity to create infinite sets of new sentences. Since those transformations are rule-bound, we can make sense of each other, even with so much creativity happening.

Consider the basic statement that underlies "duh": "I think that you are very foolish." This might be diagrammed as:

	S
NP		VP
|
PRO	V		NP
|	|
				S
			NP			VP
			|
			PRO		V			NP
			|		|
							ADV		ADJ*
							|		|
I	think	that	you		are		very		foolish

(*Here "foolish" is a "predicate adjective.")

This basic sentence is transformed according to a rule that allows a speaker to move the modifying words to the beginning of a sentence for emphasis to say, "Very foolish I think that you are."

Another transformation allows the speaker to drop the "that" to produce "Very foolish I think you are".

A third transformation changes the "very" to "how" even though the word "how" can also be used to introduce a question. Because the Noun Phrase still precedes, rather than follows, the Verb Phrase, there is no ambiguity. This "how" is not an interrogative particle, but a substitute for the adjective "very": "How foolish I think you are."

In a final leap of transformation or cultural understanding, this last sentence is compacted into the efficient "duh".

Notes

1. On page 120-1 of The Language Instinct (first edition), Steven Pinker complains about how the concept "deep structure" was misused when originally introduced by Noam Chomsky. Pinker goes on to say, "To discourage all the hype incited by the word 'deep,' linguists now usually refer to it as 'd-structure." Later on the page Pinker writes an elegant definition:

"Deep structure is the interface between the mental dictionary and phrase structure. In the deep structure, all the role-players for [the verb] appear in their expected places. Then a transformational operation can 'move' a phrase to a previously unfilled slot elsewhere in the tree. That is where we find the phrase in the actual sentence. This new tree is the surface structure (now called 's-structure,' because as a mere 'surface' representation it never used to get proper respect)."

We might consider "duh" the actual "s-structure," but I avoid saying that since "duh" already gets so little respect. Many people would think I was writing that "duh" is the "superficial-structure" with condescending emphasis on "superficial".