Quantifier elimination and other model-theoretic properties of BL-algebras

This work presents a model-theoretic approach to the study of firstorder theories of classes of BL-chains. Among other facts, we present several classes of BL-algebras, generating the whole variety of BL-algebras whose firstorder theory has quantifier elimination. Model-completeness and decision problems are also investigated. Then we investigate classes of BL-algebras having (or not having) the amalgamation property or the joint embedding property and we relate the above properties to the existence of ultrahomogeneous models. © 2011 by University of Notre Dame.Peer Reviewe

Discriminator logics (Research announcement)

A discriminator logic is the 1-assertional logic of a discriminator variety V having two constant terms 0 and 1 such that V ⊨ 0 1 iff every member of V is trivial. Examples of such logics abound in the literature. The main result of this research announcement asserts that a certain non-Fregean deductive system SBPC, which closely resembles the classical propositional calculus, is canonical for the class of discriminator logics in the sense that any discriminator logic S can be presented (up to definitional equivalence) as an axiomatic extension of SBPC by a set of extensional logical connectives taken from the language of S. The results outlined in this research announcement are extended to several generalisations of the class of discriminator logics in the main work

Discriminator logics (Research announcement)

A discriminator logic is the 1-assertional logic of a discriminator variety V having two constant terms 0 and 1 such that V ⊨ 0 1 iff every member of V is trivial. Examples of such logics abound in the literature. The main result of this research announcement asserts that a certain non-Fregean deductive system SBPC, which closely resembles the classical propositional calculus, is canonical for the class of discriminator logics in the sense that any discriminator logic S can be presented (up to definitional equivalence) as an axiomatic extension of SBPC by a set of extensional logical connectives taken from the language of S. The results outlined in this research announcement are extended to several generalisations of the class of discriminator logics in the main work

Embedding theorems and finiteness properties for residuated structures and substructural logics

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2008.Paper 1. This paper establishes several algebraic embedding theorems, each of which asserts that a certain kind of residuated structure can be embedded into a richer one. In almost all cases, the original structure has a compatible involution, which must be preserved by the embedding. The results, in conjunction with previous findings, yield separative axiomatizations of the deducibility relations of various substructural formal systems having double negation and contraposition axioms. The separation theorems go somewhat further than earlier ones in the literature, which either treated fewer subsignatures or focussed on the conservation of theorems only. Paper 2. It is proved that the variety of relevant disjunction lattices has the finite embeddability property (FEP). It follows that Avron’s relevance logic RMImin has a strong form of the finite model property, so it has a solvable deducibility problem. This strengthens Avron’s result that RMImin is decidable. Paper 3. An idempotent residuated po-monoid is semiconic if it is a subdirect product of algebras in which the monoid identity t is comparable with all other elements. It is proved that the quasivariety SCIP of all semiconic idempotent commutative residuated po-monoids is locally finite. The lattice-ordered members of this class form a variety SCIL, which is not locally finite, but it is proved that SCIL has the FEP. More generally, for every relative subvariety K of SCIP, the lattice-ordered members of K have the FEP. This gives a unified explanation of the strong finite model property for a range of logical systems. It is also proved that SCIL has continuously many semisimple subvarieties, and that the involutive algebras in SCIL are subdirect products of chains. Paper 4. Anderson and Belnap’s implicational system RMO can be extended conservatively by the usual axioms for fusion and for the Ackermann truth constant t. The resulting system RMO is algebraized by the quasivariety IP of all idempotent commutative residuated po-monoids. Thus, the axiomatic extensions of RMO are in one-to-one correspondence with the relative subvarieties of IP. It is proved here that a relative subvariety of IP consists of semiconic algebras if and only if it satisfies x (x t) x. Since the semiconic algebras in IP are locally finite, it follows that when an axiomatic extension of RMO has ((p t) p) p among its theorems, then it is locally tabular. In particular, such an extension is strongly decidable, provided that it is finitely axiomatized

On some axiomatic extensions of the monoidal T-norm based logic MTL : an analysis in the propositional and in the first-order case

The scientific area this book belongs to are many-valued logics: in particular, the logic MTL and some of its extensions, in the propositional and in the first-order case. The book is divided in two parts: in the first one the necessary background about these logics, with some minor new results, are presented. The second part is devoted to more specific topics: there are five chapters, each one about a different problem. In chapter 6 a temporal semantics for Basic Logic BL is presented. In chapter 7 we move to first-order logics, by studying the supersoundness property: we have improved some previous works about this theme, by expanding the analysis to many extensions of the first-order version of MTL. Chapter 8 is dedicated to four different families of n-contractive axiomatic extensions of BL, analyzed in the propositional and in the first-order case: completeness, computational and arithmetical complexity, amalgamation and interpolation properties are studied. Finally, chapters 9 and 10 are about Nilpotent Minimum logic: in chapter 9 the sets of tautologies of some NM-chains (subalgebras of [0,1]_NM) are studied, compared and the problems of axiomatization and undecidability are tackled. Chapter 10, instead, concerns some logical and algebraic properties of (propositional) Nilpotent Minimum logic. The results (or an extended version of them) of these last chapters have been also presented in papers