Ternary Gamma Semirings: From Neural Implementation to Categorical Foundations
Abstract
This paper establishes a theoretical framework connecting neural network learning with abstract algebraic structures. We first present a minimal counterexample demonstrating that standard neural networks completely fail on compositional generalization tasks (0% accuracy). By introducing a logical constraint -- the Ternary Gamma Semiring -- the same architecture learns a perfectly structured feature space, achieving 100% accuracy on novel combinations. We prove that this learned feature space constitutes a finite commutative ternary -semiring, whose ternary operation implements the majority vote rule. Comparing with the recently established classification of Gokavarapu et al., we show that this structure corresponds precisely to the Boolean-type ternary -semiring with , }, which is unique up to isomorphism in their enumeration. Our findings reveal three profound conclusions: (i) the success of neural networks can be understood as an approximation of mathematically ``natural'' structures; (ii) learned representations generalize because they internalize algebraic axioms (symmetry, idempotence, majority property); (iii) logical constraints guide networks to converge to these canonical forms. This work provides a rigorous mathematical framework for understanding neural network generalization and inaugurates the new interdisciplinary direction of Computational -Algebra.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.19317,
title = {Ternary Gamma Semirings: From Neural Implementation to Categorical Foundations},
author = {Ruoqi Sun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.19317},
year = {2026}
}