One-Variable Fragments of First-Order Many-Valued Logics

In this thesis we study one-variable fragments of first-order logics. Such a one-variable fragment consists of those first-order formulas that contain only unary predicates and a single variable. These fragments can be viewed from a modal perspective by replacing the universal and existential quantifier with a box and diamond modality, respectively, and the unary predicates with corresponding propositional variables. Under this correspondence, the one-variable fragment of first-order classical logic famously corresponds to the modal logic S5. This thesis explores some such correspondences between first-order and modal logics. Firstly, we study first-order intuitionistic logics based on linear intuitionistic Kripke frames. We show that their one-variable fragments correspond to particular modal Gödel logics, defined over many-valued S5-Kripke frames. For a large class of these logics, we prove the validity problem to be decidable, even co-NP-complete. Secondly, we investigate the one-variable fragment of first-order Abelian logic, i.e., the first-order logic based on the ordered additive group of the reals. We provide two completeness results with respect to Hilbert-style axiomatizations: one for the one-variable fragment, and one for the one-variable fragment that does not contain any lattice connectives. Both these fragments are proved to be decidable. Finally, we launch a much broader algebraic investigation into one-variable fragments. We turn to the setting of first-order substructural logics (with the rule of exchange). Inspired by work on, among others, monadic Boolean algebras and monadic Heyting algebras, we define monadic commutative pointed residuated lattices as a first (algebraic) investigation into one-variable fragments of this large class of first-order logics. We prove a number of properties for these newly defined algebras, including a characterization in terms of relatively complete subalgebras as well as a characterization of their congruences

Fault detection and rectification algorithms in a question-answering system

A Malay proverb "jika sesat di hujung jalan, baleklah kepangkal jalan" roughly means "if you get lost at the end of the road, go back to the beginning". In going back to the beginning of the road, we learn our mistakes and hopefully will not repeat the same mistake again. Thus, this work investigates the use of formal logic as a practical tool for reasoning why we could not infer or deduce a correct answer from a question posed to a database. An extension of the Prolog interpreter is written to mechanise a theorem-proving system based on Horn clauses. This extension procedure will form the basis of the question-answering system. Both input into and output from this system is in the form of predicate calculus. This system can answer all four classes of questions as classified by Chang and Lee (1973). [Continues.

Proof-theoretic Semantics for Intuitionistic Multiplicative Linear Logic

This work is the first exploration of proof-theoretic semantics for a substructural logic. It focuses on the base-extension semantics (B-eS) for intuitionistic multiplicative linear logic (IMLL). The starting point is a review of Sandqvist’s B-eS for intuitionistic propositional logic (IPL), for which we propose an alternative treatment of conjunction that takes the form of the generalized elimination rule for the connective. The resulting semantics is shown to be sound and complete. This motivates our main contribution, a B-eS for IMLL , in which the definitions of the logical constants all take the form of their elimination rule and for which soundness and completeness are established

Goal-directed proof theory

This report is the draft of a book about goal directed proof theoretical formulations of non-classical logics. It evolved from a response to the existence of two camps in the applied logic (computer science/artificial intelligence) community. There are those members who believe that the new non-classical logics are the most important ones for applications and that classical logic itself is now no longer the main workhorse of applied logic, and there are those who maintain that classical logic is the only logic worth considering and that within classical logic the Horn clause fragment is the most important one. The book presents a uniform Prolog-like formulation of the landscape of classical and non-classical logics, done in such away that the distinctions and movements from one logic to another seem simple and natural; and within it classical logic becomes just one among many. This should please the non-classical logic camp. It will also please the classical logic camp since the goal directed formulation makes it all look like an algorithmic extension of Logic Programming. The approach also seems to provide very good compuational complexity bounds across its landscape