In the field of
linguistics, specifically in
syntax,
phonetic form (abbreviated 'PF'), also known as phonological form or the Articulatory-Perceptual (A-P) system, refers to a certain level of
mental representation of a linguistic expression, derived from
surface structure, and related to
logical form. Phonetic form is the level of representation wherein expressions, or sentences, are assigned a phonetic representation, which is then pronounced by the speaker. Phonetic form takes
surface structure as its input, and outputs an audible (or visual, in the case of sign languages), pronounced sentence.