a theory of generative grammar holding that the deep structure of a sentence is equivalent to its semantic representation, from which the surface structure can then be derived using only one set of rules that relate underlying meaning and surface form rather than separate sets of semantic and syntactic rules.
British Dictionary definitions for generative semantics
generative semantics
noun
(functioning as singular)a school of semantic theory based on the doctrine that syntactic and semantic structure are of the same formal nature and that there is a single system of rules that relates surface structure to meaningCompare interpretive semantics
