Chomsky proposed the concepts of deep structure and surface structure. Deep structure refers to the abstract meaning of a sentence, while surface structure is the actual spoken or written form. A transformation function links deep structure and surface structure. For example, the deep structure of "Visiting doctors can be nuisance" could be either "We visit doctors. It can be nuisance" or "Doctors visit us. They can be nuisance". Deep structure represents thematic relations, with elements in the same syntactic position regardless of their position in surface structure.