Related papers: Feferman-Vaught Decompositions for Prefix Classes …
We investigate the decidability of the definability problem for fragments of first order logic over finite words enriched with modular predicates. Our approach aims toward the most generic statements that we could achieve, which…
We identify a number of decidable and undecidable fragments of first-order concatenation theory. We also give a purely universal axiomatization which is complete for the fragments we identify. Furthermore, we prove some normal-form results.
Recently, the separated fragment (SF) of first-order logic has been introduced. Its defining principle is that universally and existentially quantified variables may not occur together in atoms. SF properly generalizes both the…
The class of problems complete for NP via first-order reductions is known to be characterized by existential second-order sentences of a fixed form. All such sentences are built around the so-called generalized IS-form of the sentence that…
Sets with atoms serve as an alternative to ZFC foundations for mathematics, where some infinite, though highly symmetric sets, behave in a finitistic way. Therefore, one can try to carry over analysis of the classical algorithms from finite…
The first-order theory of addition over the natural numbers, known as Presburger arithmetic, is decidable in double exponential time. Adding an uninterpreted unary predicate to the language leads to an undecidable theory. We sharpen the…
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…
Over the past two decades several fragments of first-order logic have been identified and shown to have good computational and algorithmic properties, to a great extent as a result of appropriately describing the image of the standard…
This paper investigates the expressiveness of a fragment of first-order sentences in Gaifman normal form, namely the positive Boolean combinations of basic local sentences. We show that they match exactly the first-order sentences preserved…
In Apt and Bezem [AB99] (see cs.LO/9811017) we provided a computational interpretation of first-order formulas over arbitrary interpretations. Here we complement this work by introducing a denotational semantics for first-order logic.…
We consider a language together with the subword relation, the cover relation, and regular predicates. For such structures, we consider the extension of first-order logic by threshold- and modulo-counting quantifiers. Depending on the…
We extend first-order logic to include variadic function symbols, and prove a substitution lemma. Two applications are given: one to bounded quantifier elimination and one to the definability of certain Borel sets.
For fragments L of first-order logic (FO) with counting quantifiers, we consider the definability problem, which asks whether a given L-formula can be equivalently expressed by a formula in some fragment of L without counting, and the more…
We introduce a new logic, called \emph{cluster first-order logic}, a restricted fragment of first-order logic specifically designed to study order invariance. An order-invariant formula is one on a vocabulary that contains an order;…
Proofs are traditionally syntactic, inductively generated objects. This paper reformulates first-order logic (predicate calculus) with proofs which are graph-theoretic rather than syntactic. It defines a combinatorial proof of a formula…
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.…
Local-order-invariant (first-order) logic is an extension of first-order logic where formulae have access to a ternary local order relation on the Gaifman graph, provided that the truth value does not depend on the specific order relation…
This paper discusses the method of formative rules for first-order term rewriting, which was previously defined for a higher-order setting. Dual to the well-known usable rules, formative rules allow dropping some of the term constraints…
We show that for any $i > 0$, it is decidable, given a regular language, whether it is expressible in the $\Sigma_i[<]$ fragment of first-order logic FO[<]. This settles a question open since 1971. Our main technical result relies on the…
We introduce the logic FOCN(P) which extends first-order logic by counting and by numerical predicates from a set P, and which can be viewed as a natural generalisation of various counting logics that have been studied in the literature. We…