1,372 research outputs found
Undecidability of the unification and admissibility problems for modal and description logics
We show that the unification problem `is there a substitution instance of a
given formula that is provable in a given logic?' is undecidable for basic
modal logics K and K4 extended with the universal modality. It follows that the
admissibility problem for inference rules is undecidable for these logics as
well. These are the first examples of standard decidable modal logics for which
the unification and admissibility problems are undecidable. We also prove
undecidability of the unification and admissibility problems for K and K4 with
at least two modal operators and nominals (instead of the universal modality),
thereby showing that these problems are undecidable for basic hybrid logics.
Recently, unification has been introduced as an important reasoning service for
description logics. The undecidability proof for K with nominals can be used to
show the undecidability of unification for boolean description logics with
nominals (such as ALCO and SHIQO). The undecidability proof for K with the
universal modality can be used to show that the unification problem relative to
role boxes is undecidable for Boolean description logic with transitive roles,
inverse roles, and role hierarchies (such as SHI and SHIQ)
Towards Deciding Second-order Unification Problems Using Regular Tree Automata
International audienceThe second-order unification problem is undecidable [5]. While unification procedures, like Huet's pre-unification, terminate with success on unifiable problems, they might not terminate on non-unifiable ones. There are several decidability results for unification problems with infinitely-many pre-unifiers, such as for monadic second-order problems [3]. These results are based on the regular structure of the solutions of these problems and by computing minimal unifiers. Beyond the importance of the knowledge that searching for unifiers of decidable problems always terminates, one can also use this information in order to optimize unification algorithms, such as in the case for pattern unification [10]. Nevertheless, being able to prove that the unification problem of a certain class of unification constraints is decidable is far from easy. Some results were obtained for certain syntactic restrictions on the problems (see Levy [8] for some results and references) or on the unifiers (see Schmidt-Schauß [11], Schmidt-Schauß and Schulz [12, 13] and Je˙ z [7] for some results). Infinitary unification problems, like the ones we are considering, might suggest that known tools for dealing with the infinite might be useful. One such tool is the regular tree automaton. The drawback of using regular automata for unification is, of course, their inability to deal with variables. In this paper we try to overcome this obstacle and describe an ongoing work about using regular tree automata [1] in order to decide more general second-order unification problems. The second-order unification problems we will consider are of the form λz n .x 0 t. = λz n .C(x 0 s) where C is a non-empty context [2] and x 0 does not occur in t or s. We will call such problems cyclic problems. An important result in second-order unification was obtained by Ganzinger et al. [4] and stated that second-order unification is undecidable already when there is only one second-order variable occurring twice. The unification problem they used for proving the undecidability result was an instance of the following cyclic problem. Note that we chose to use in the definition only unary second-order variables but that this restriction should not be essential. x 0 (w 1 , g(y 1 , a)) = g(y 2 , x 0 (w 2 , a)) (1) Our decidability result is obtained by posing one further restriction over cyclic problems which is based on the existence and location of variables other than the cyclic one. A sufficient condition for the decidability of second-order unification problems was given by Levy [8]. This condition states that if we can never encounter, when applying Huet's pre-unification procedure [6] to a problem, a cyclic equation, then the procedure terminates. It follows from this result that deciding second-order unification problems depends on the ability to decide cyclic problems. The rules of Huet's procedure (PUA) are given in Fig. 1. Imitation partial bindings and projection partial bindings are defined in [14] and are denoted, respectively, by PB(f, α) and PB(i, α) where α is a type, Σ a signature f ∈ Σ and i > 0
Type Inference for Bimorphic Recursion
This paper proposes bimorphic recursion, which is restricted polymorphic
recursion such that every recursive call in the body of a function definition
has the same type. Bimorphic recursion allows us to assign two different types
to a recursively defined function: one is for its recursive calls and the other
is for its calls outside its definition. Bimorphic recursion in this paper can
be nested. This paper shows bimorphic recursion has principal types and
decidable type inference. Hence bimorphic recursion gives us flexible typing
for recursion with decidable type inference. This paper also shows that its
typability becomes undecidable because of nesting of recursions when one
removes the instantiation property from the bimorphic recursion.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081
The Algebraic Intersection Type Unification Problem
The algebraic intersection type unification problem is an important component
in proof search related to several natural decision problems in intersection
type systems. It is unknown and remains open whether the algebraic intersection
type unification problem is decidable. We give the first nontrivial lower bound
for the problem by showing (our main result) that it is exponential time hard.
Furthermore, we show that this holds even under rank 1 solutions (substitutions
whose codomains are restricted to contain rank 1 types). In addition, we
provide a fixed-parameter intractability result for intersection type matching
(one-sided unification), which is known to be NP-complete.
We place the algebraic intersection type unification problem in the context
of unification theory. The equational theory of intersection types can be
presented as an algebraic theory with an ACI (associative, commutative, and
idempotent) operator (intersection type) combined with distributivity
properties with respect to a second operator (function type). Although the
problem is algebraically natural and interesting, it appears to occupy a
hitherto unstudied place in the theory of unification, and our investigation of
the problem suggests that new methods are required to understand the problem.
Thus, for the lower bound proof, we were not able to reduce from known results
in ACI-unification theory and use game-theoretic methods for two-player tiling
games
Decidable structures between Church-style and Curry-style
It is well-known that the type-checking and type-inference problems are undecidable for second order lambda-calculus in Curry-style, although those for Church-style are decidable. What causes the differences in decidability and undecidability on the problems? We examine crucial conditions on terms for the (un)decidability property from the viewpoint of partially typed terms, and what kinds of type annotations are essential for (un)decidability of type-related problems. It is revealed that there exists an intermediate structure of second order lambda-terms, called a style of hole-application, between Church-style and Curry-style, such that the type-related problems are decidable under the structure. We also extend this idea to the omega-order polymorphic calculus F-omega, and show that the type-checking and type-inference problems then become undecidable
Context unification is in PSPACE
Contexts are terms with one `hole', i.e. a place in which we can substitute
an argument. In context unification we are given an equation over terms with
variables representing contexts and ask about the satisfiability of this
equation. Context unification is a natural subvariant of second-order
unification, which is undecidable, and a generalization of word equations,
which are decidable, at the same time. It is the unique problem between those
two whose decidability is uncertain (for already almost two decades). In this
paper we show that the context unification is in PSPACE. The result holds under
a (usual) assumption that the first-order signature is finite.
This result is obtained by an extension of the recompression technique,
recently developed by the author and used in particular to obtain a new PSPACE
algorithm for satisfiability of word equations, to context unification. The
recompression is based on performing simple compression rules (replacing pairs
of neighbouring function symbols), which are (conceptually) applied on the
solution of the context equation and modifying the equation in a way so that
such compression steps can be in fact performed directly on the equation,
without the knowledge of the actual solution.Comment: 27 pages, submitted, small notation changes and small improvements
over the previous tex
Unification modulo a partial theory of exponentiation
Modular exponentiation is a common mathematical operation in modern
cryptography. This, along with modular multiplication at the base and exponent
levels (to different moduli) plays an important role in a large number of key
agreement protocols. In our earlier work, we gave many decidability as well as
undecidability results for multiple equational theories, involving various
properties of modular exponentiation. Here, we consider a partial subtheory
focussing only on exponentiation and multiplication operators. Two main results
are proved. The first result is positive, namely, that the unification problem
for the above theory (in which no additional property is assumed of the
multiplication operators) is decidable. The second result is negative: if we
assume that the two multiplication operators belong to two different abelian
groups, then the unification problem becomes undecidable.Comment: In Proceedings UNIF 2010, arXiv:1012.455
On the Limits of Second-Order Unification
Second-Order Unification is a problem that naturally arises when applying automated deduction techniques with variables denoting predicates. The problem is undecidable, but a considerable effort has been made in order to find decidable fragments, and understand the deep reasons of its complexity. Two variants of the problem, Bounded Second-Order Unification and Linear Second-Order Unification ¿where the use of bound variables in the instantiations is restricted¿, have been extensively studied in the last two decades. In this paper we summarize some decidability/undecidability/complexity results, trying to focus on those that could be more interesting for a wider audience, and involving less technical details.Peer Reviewe
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