Related papers: On the strictness of the quantifier structure hier…
We study first-order as well as infinitary logics extended with quantifiers closed upwards under embeddings. In particular, we show that if a chain of quasi-homogeneous structures is sufficiently long then a given formula of such a logic is…
We study multi-structural games, played on two sets $\mathcal{A}$ and $\mathcal{B}$ of structures. These games generalize Ehrenfeucht-Fra\"{i}ss\'{e} games. Whereas Ehrenfeucht-Fra\"{i}ss\'{e} games capture the quantifier rank of a…
We define a version of the Ehrenfeucht-Fra\"iss\'e game in the setting of metric model theory and continuous first-order logic and show that the second player having a winning strategy in a game of length $n$ exactly corresponds to being…
Alternating quantifier depth is a natural measure of difficulty required to express first order logical sentences. We define a sequence of first order properties on rooted, locally finite trees in a recursive manner, and provide rigorous…
Ehrenfeucht-Fra\"iss\'e (EF) games are a basic tool in finite model theory for proving definability lower bounds, with many applications in complexity theory and related areas. They have been applied to study various logics, giving insights…
Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse games are very useful in studying separation and equivalence results in logic. The standard finite Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse game characterizes equivalence in first order logic. The standard Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse game in…
Fragments of first-order logic over words can often be characterized in terms of finite monoids, and identities of omega-terms are an effective mechanism for specifying classes of monoids. Huschenbett and the first author have shown how to…
We investigate the following problem: given a sample of classified strings, find a first-order sentence of minimal quantifier rank that is consistent with the sample. We represent strings as successor string structures, that is, finite…
In this paper, we give an overview of some recent work on applying tools from category theory in finite model theory, descriptive complexity, constraint satisfaction, and combinatorics. The motivations for this work come from Computer…
Continuous first-order logic is used to apply model-theoretic analysis to analytic structures (e.g. Hilbert spaces, Banach spaces, probability spaces, etc.). Classical computable model theory is used to examine the algorithmic structure of…
Fragments of first-order logic over words can often be characterized in terms of finite monoids or finite semigroups. Usually these algebraic descriptions yield decidability of the question whether a given regular language is definable in a…
We investigate the properties of Inclusion Logic, that is, First Order Logic with Team Semantics extended with inclusion dependencies. We prove that Inclusion Logic is equivalent to Greatest Fixed Point Logic, and we prove that all…
We introduce a new hierarchy of higher-order nested pushdown trees generalising Alur et al.'s concept of nested pushdown trees. Nested pushdown trees are useful representations of control flows in the verification of programs with recursive…
Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse games provide means to characterize elementary equivalence for first-order logic, and by standard translation also for modal logics. We propose a novel generalization of Ehrenfeucht- Fraisse games to hybrid-dynamic…
It is well-known that every first-order property on words is expressible using at most three variables. The subclass of properties expressible with only two variables is also quite interesting and well-studied. We prove precise structure…
The description complexity of a model is the length of the shortest formula that defines the model. We study the description complexity of unary structures in first-order logic FO, also drawing links to semantic complexity in the form of…
We propose an extension of the Ehrenfeucht-Fraisse game able to deal with logics augmented with Lindstrom quantifiers. We describe three different games with varying balance between simplicity and ease of use.
We study the expressive power of the two-variable fragment of order-invariant first-order logic. This logic departs from first-order logic in two ways: first, formulas are only allowed to quantify over two variables. Second, formulas can…
We investigate the quantifier alternation hierarchy in first-order logic on finite words. Levels in this hierarchy are defined by counting the number of quantifier alternations in formulas. We prove that one can decide membership of a…
Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem has given rise to a broad and productive line of research in mathematical logic, where the classification process of decidable classes of first-order sentences represent only one of the remarkable results.…