As with function, a term with a wide variety of different meanings. At a very general level, it is a complex construction or entity arranged in parts or organs or constituent particles in a substance, body or social organisation. In structuralism, the aim is to identify unobservable structures that generate observable social, linguistic or cognitive phenomena on the basis of observable functions. In biology, reference is made to observable organic structures such as the lungs and heart as well as to neural structures that are readily identifiable parts of the nervous system such as the cerebral cortex or cerebellum, but their functions have to be inferred.
See Function, Structure d’ensemble, Structure-function relationships