Logical Form and Syntactic Structure

Abstract

Two distinct theoretical roles may be regarded as constitutive of a notion of logical form, the logical role and the semantic role. Therefore, one may ask whether a single notion can fulfil both roles. Most of those who accept the current conception of logical form seem to take for granted that the answer to this question is affirmative, namely, that there is a unique notion of logical form that fulfils both roles. Their confidence in the existence of such a notion rests on a widely accepted view that will be outlined and criticized in this chapter, the view that logical form is determined by intrinsic properties of sentences.