Related papers: Regular languages defined by first-order formulas …
The regular languages with a neutral letter expressible in first-order logic with one alternation are characterized. Specifically, it is shown that if an arbitrary $\Sigma_2$ formula defines a regular language with a neutral letter, then…
This paper explores the fine-grained structure of classes of regular languages maintainable in fragments of first-order logic within the dynamic descriptive complexity framework of Patnaik and Immerman. A result by Hesse states that 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…
We investigate quantifier alternation hierarchies in first-order logic on finite words. Levels in these hierarchies are defined by counting the number of quantifier alternations in formulas. We prove that one can decide membership of a…
The atoms of a regular language are non-empty intersections of complemented and uncomplemented quotients of the language. Tight upper bounds on the number of atoms of a language and on the quotient complexities of atoms are known. We…
Formal languages are sets of strings of symbols described by a set of rules specific to them. In this note, we discuss a certain class of formal languages, called regular languages, and put forward some elementary results. The properties of…
Recently Ferraris, Lee and Lifschitz proposed a new definition of stable models that does not refer to grounding, which applies to the syntax of arbitrary first-order sentences. We show its relation to the idea of loop formulas with…
We consider two-variable first-order logic on finite words with a fixed number of quantifier alternations. We show that all languages with a neutral letter definable using the order and finite-degree predicates are also definable with the…
We consider some questions about formal languages that arise when inverses of letters, words and languages are defined. The reduced representation of a language over the free monoid is its unique equivalent representation in the free group.…
We study the question of whether a given regular language of finite trees can be defined in first-order logic. We develop an algebraic approach to address this question and we use it to derive several necessary and sufficient conditions for…
FC is a first-order logic that reasons over all factors of a finite word using concatenation, and can define non-regular languages like that of all squares (ww). In this paper, we establish that there are regular languages that are not…
It is well-known that: (i) every context-free language over a singleton terminal alphabet is regular, and (ii) the class of languages that satisfy the Pumping Lemma is a proper super-class of the context-free languages. We show that any…
We define a class of languages of infinite words over infinite alphabets, and the corresponding automata. The automata used for recognition are a generalisation of deterministic Muller automata to the setting of nominal sets. Remarkably,…
Exactly solving first-order constraints (i.e., first-order formulas over a certain predefined structure) can be a very hard, or even undecidable problem. In continuous structures like the real numbers it is promising to compute approximate…
Given two languages, a separator is a third language that contains the first one and is disjoint from the second one. We investigate the following decision problem: given two regular input languages of finite words, decide whether there…
We study tree languages that can be defined in \Delta_2 . These are tree languages definable by a first-order formula whose quantifier prefix is forall exists, and simultaneously by a first-order formula whose quantifier prefix is . For the…
This paper proposes an alternative to standard first-order logic that seeks greater naturalness, generality, and semantic self-containment. The system removes the first-order restriction, avoids type hierarchies, and dispenses with external…
Safe first-order formulas generalize the concept of a safe rule, which plays an important role in the design of answer set solvers. We show that any safe sentence is equivalent, in a certain sense, to the result of its grounding -- to the…
The study of finite automata and regular languages is a privileged meeting point of algebra and logic. Since the work of Buchi, regular languages have been classified according to their descriptive complexity, i.e. the type of logical…
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…