Techniques for improving a semantic parser of a dialog system, by breaking the semantic parser into a coarse semantic parser and a fine semantic parser, are described. A method described herein includes accessing an utterance received in a dialog system. The utterance is a text-based natural language expression. The method further includes applying a coarse semantic parser to the utterance to determine an intermediate logical form for the utterance. The intermediate logical form indicates one or more intents in the utterance. The method further includes applying a fine semantic parser to the intermediate logical form to determine a logical form for the utterance. The logical form is a syntactic expression of the utterance according to an established grammar, and the logical form includes one or more parameters of the one or more intents. The logical form can be used to conduct a dialog with a user of the dialog system.