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How does transformational grammar relate statements and questions?

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Noam Chomsky wearing glasses and a dark sweater, looking slightly to the side during an interview. — Noam Chomsky American linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, 2010.

In transformational grammar, as developed by Noam Chomsky, statements and questions are related by deriving them from the same underlying structure or terminal string generated by the phrase-structure component of the grammar.12

While these sentences may appear very different on the surface—such as in word order—the system uses transformational rules to show that they share a similar deeper relationship. For example, the statement "George saw Mary" is related to the questions "Whom did George see?" and "Who saw Mary?" through these formal processes.1

Crucially, Chomsky’s system does not convert one actual sentence into another; rather, the transformational rules operate upon the underlying structures of sentences. Declarative and interrogative sentences are formally related by deriving them from the same underlying terminal string, with nonkernel sentences requiring the application of specific optional and obligatory transformations to reach their final surface structure.2