Logical form (linguistics)

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In the field of linguistics, specifically in syntax, logical form (abbreviated 'LF'), refers to a certain level of mental representation of a linguistic expression, derived from surface structure, and sister to phonetic form.

Logical form is the level of representation wherein expressions, or sentences, are assigned a representation of meaning. LF is sometimes referred to as a 'covert' level of representation, because the output of this level is not actually pronounced by the speaker.^[1] LF is posited in syntax in order to give a structural account of semantic ambiguities in sentences. For example, the sentence,

"Everyone loves someone"

is semantically ambiguous. Specifically, it contains a scope ambiguity. In other syntactic representations (deep structure and surface structure), this ambiguity is not resolved. LF is a theoretical representation in which this sort of sentence would have two possible structural representations, one for each possible scope-reading, in order to account for the ambiguity by structural differentiation. In this way, it is similar in purpose, but not the same as Logical form in logic.