Related papers: The descriptive complexity approach to LOGCFL

We show that the decidability of the first-order theory of the language that combines Boolean algebras of sets of uninterpreted elements with Presburger arithmetic operations. We thereby disprove a recent conjecture that this theory is…

We introduce a novel decidable fragment of first-order logic. The fragment is one-dimensional in the sense that quantification is limited to applications of blocks of existential (universal) quantifiers such that at most one variable…

We study first-order logic (FO) over the structure consisting of finite words over some alphabet $A$, together with the (non-contiguous) subword ordering. In terms of decidability of quantifier alternation fragments, this logic is…

While modal extensions of decidable fragments of first-order logic are usually undecidable, their monodic counterparts, in which formulas in the scope of modal operators have at most one free variable, are typically decidable. This only…

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 study the positive logic FO+ on finite words, and its fragments, pursuing and refining the work initiated in [Kuperberg 2023]. First, we transpose notorious logic equivalences into positive first-order logic: FO+ is equivalent to LTL+ ,…

Aiming at ontology-based data access to temporal data, we design two-dimensional temporal ontology and query languages by combining logics from the (extended) DL-Lite family with linear temporal logic LTL over discrete time (Z,<). Our main…

We study the algorithmic properties of first-order monomodal logics of frames $\langle \mathbb{N}, \leq \rangle$, $\langle \mathbb{N}, < \rangle$, $\langle \mathbb{Q}, \leq \rangle$, $\langle \mathbb{Q}, < \rangle$, $\langle \mathbb{R},…

For every $q\in \mathbb N$ let $\textrm{FO}_q$ denote the class of sentences of first-order logic FO of quantifier rank at most $q$. If a graph property can be defined in $\textrm{FO}_q$, then it can be decided in time $O(n^q)$. Thus,…

Hybrid logic with binders is an expressive specification language. Its satisfiability problem is undecidable in general. If frames are restricted to N or general linear orders, then satisfiability is known to be decidable, but of…

We investigate an operator on classes of languages. For each class $C$, it outputs a new class $FO^2(I_C)$ associated with a variant of two-variable first-order logic equipped with a signature$I_C$ built from $C$. For $C = \{\emptyset,…

Motivated by recent connections to factorised databases, we analyse the efficiency of representations by context free grammars (CFGs). Concretely, we prove a recent conjecture by Kimelfeld, Martens, and Niewerth (ICDT 2025), that for finite…

Let $A_N$ denote nondeterministic automatic complexity and \[ L_{k,c}=\{x\in [k]^* : A_N(x)> |x|/c\}. \] In particular, $L_{k,2}$ is the language of all $k$-ary words for which $A_N$ is maximal, while $L_{k,3}$ gives a rough dividing line…

Rational word languages can be defined by several equivalent means: finite state automata, rational expressions, finite congruences, or monadic second-order (MSO) logic. The robust subclass of aperiodic languages is defined by: counter-free…

To Rogers (1994) we owe the insight that monadic second order predicate logic with multiple successors (MSO) is well suited in many respects as a realistic formal base for syntactic theorizing. However, the agreeable formal properties of…

First-order logic (FO) can express many algorithmic problems on graphs, such as the independent set and dominating set problem, parameterized by solution size. On the other hand, FO cannot express the very simple algorithmic question of…

We consider the class of languages defined in the 2-variable fragment of the first-order logic of the linear order. Many interesting characterizations of this class are known, as well as the fact that restricting the number of quantifier…

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…

It is known that first-order logic with some counting extensions can be efficiently evaluated on graph classes with bounded expansion, where depth-$r$ minors have constant density. More precisely, the formulas are $\exists x_1 ... x_k \#y…

These notes present the essentials of first- and second-order monadic logics on strings with introductory purposes. We discuss Monadic First-Order logic and show that it is strictly less expressive than Finite-State Automata, in that it…