Modal definability in enriched languages

Abstract The paper deals with polymodal languages combined with stan-dard semantics defined by means of some conditions on the frames. So a notion of "polymodal base " arises which provides various enrichments of the classical modal language. One of these enrichments, viz. the base £(R,-R), with modalities over a relation and over its complement, is the paper's main paradigm. The modal definability (in the spirit of van Benthem's correspon-dence theory) of arbitrary and ~-elementary classes of frames in this base and in some of its extensions, e.g., £(R,-R,R-1,_R-1), £(R,-R,=I=) etc., is described, and numerous examples of conditions definable there, as well as undefinable ones, are adduced. 81 Introduction Undoubtedly, first-order languages are reliable and universal tools for formalization. However, in some cases the cost of this universality is not fully acceptable: on the one hand we have the undecidability results, and on the other the fact that the expressive power of first-order languages does no

Negation in context

The present essay includes six thematically connected papers on negation in the areas of the philosophy of logic, philosophical logic and metaphysics. Each of the chapters besides the first, which puts each the chapters to follow into context, highlights a central problem negation poses to a certain area of philosophy. Chapter 2 discusses the problem of logical revisionism and whether there is any room for genuine disagreement, and hence shared meaning, between the classicist and deviant's respective uses of 'not'. If there is not, revision is impossible. I argue that revision is indeed possible and provide an account of negation as contradictoriness according to which a number of alleged negations are declared genuine. Among them are the negations of FDE (First-Degree Entailment) and a wide family of other relevant logics, LP (Priest's dialetheic "Logic of Paradox"), Kleene weak and strong 3-valued logics with either "exclusion" or "choice" negation, and intuitionistic logic. Chapter 3 discusses the problem of furnishing intuitionistic logic with an empirical negation for adequately expressing claims of the form 'A is undecided at present' or 'A may never be decided' the latter of which has been argued to be intuitionistically inconsistent. Chapter 4 highlights the importance of various notions of consequence-as-s-preservation where s may be falsity (versus untruth), indeterminacy or some other semantic (or "algebraic") value, in formulating rationality constraints on speech acts and propositional attitudes such as rejection, denial and dubitability. Chapter 5 provides an account of the nature of truth values regarded as objects. It is argued that only truth exists as the maximal truthmaker. The consequences this has for semantics representationally construed are considered and it is argued that every logic, from classical to non-classical, is gappy. Moreover, a truthmaker theory is developed whereby only positive truths, an account of which is also developed therein, have truthmakers. Chapter 6 investigates the definability of negation as "absolute" impossibility, i.e. where the notion of necessity or possibility in question corresponds to the global modality. The modality is not readily definable in the usual Kripkean languages and so neither is impossibility taken in the broadest sense. The languages considered here include one with counterfactual operators and propositional quantification and another bimodal language with a modality and its complementary. Among the definability results we give some preservation and translation results as well

Temporal logics

We consider a number of temporal logics, some interval-based and some instant-based, and the choices that have to be made if we need to construct a computational framework for such a logic. We consider the axiomatisation of the accessibility relations of the underlying temporal structures when we are using a modal language as well as the formulation of axioms for distinguishing concepts like actions, events, processes and so on for systems using first-order languages. Finally, we briefly discuss the fields of application of temporal logics and list a number of fields that looks promising for further research.Computer Science and Information SystemsM.Sc.(Computer Science

Incremental decision procedures for modal logics with nominals and eventualities

This thesis contributes to the study of incremental decision procedures for modal logics with nominals and eventualities. Eventualities are constructs that allow to reason about the reflexive-transitive closure of relations. Eventualities are an essential feature of temporal logics and propositional dynamic logic (PDL). Nominals extend modal logics with the possibility to reason about state equality. Modal logics with nominals are often called hybrid logics. Incremental procedures are procedures that can potentially solve a problem by performing only the reasoning steps needed for the problem in the underlying calculus. We begin by introducing a class of syntactic models called demos and showing how demos can be used for obtaining nonincremental but worst-case optimal decision procedures for extensions of PDL with nominals, converse and difference modalities. We show that in the absence of nominals, such nonincremental procedures can be refined into incremental demo search procedures, obtaining a worst-case optimal decision procedure for modal logic with eventualities. We then develop the first incremental decision procedure for basic hybrid logic with eventualities, which we eventually extend to deal with hybrid PDL. The approach in the thesis suggests a new principled design of modular, incremental decision procedures for expressive modal logics. In particular, it yields the first incremental procedures for modal logics containing both nominals and eventualities.Diese Dissertation untersucht inkrementelle Entscheidungsverfahren für Modallogiken mit Nominalen und Eventualities. Eventualities sind Konstrukte, die erlauben, über den reflexiv-transitiven Abschluss von Relationen zu sprechen. Sie sind ein Schlüsselmerkmal von Temporallogiken und dynamischer Aussagenlogik (PDL). Nominale erweitern Modallogik um die Möglichkeit, über Gleichheit von Zuständen zu sprechen. Modallogik mit Nominalen nennt man Hybridlogik. Inkrementell ist ein Verfahren dann, wenn es ein Problem so lösen kann, dass für die Lösung nur solche Schritte in dem zugrundeliegenden Kalkül gemacht werden, die für das Problem relevant sind. Wir führen zunächst eine Klasse syntaktischer Modelle ein, die wir Demos nennen. Wir nutzen Demos um nichtinkrementelle aber laufzeitoptimale Entscheidungsverfahren für Erweiterungen von PDL zu konstruieren. Wir zeigen, dass im Fall ohne Nominale solche Verfahren durch algorithmische Verfeinerung zu inkrementellen Verfahren ausgebaut werden können. Insbesondere erhalten wir so ein optimales Verfahren für Modallogik mit Eventualities. Anschließend entwickeln wir das erste inkrementelle Verfahren für Hybridlogik mit Eventualities, welches wir schließlich auf hybrides PDL erweitern. Die Dissertation vermittelt einen neuen Ansatz zur Konstruktion modularer, inkrementeller Entscheidungsverfahren für expressive Modallogiken. Insbesondere liefert der Ansatz die ersten inkrementellen Verfahren für Modallogiken mit Nominalen und Eventualities

Nominal tense logic and other sorted intensional frameworks

This thesis introduces of a system of tense logic called nominal tense logic (NTL), and several extensions. Its primary aim is to establish that these systems are logically interesting, and can provide useful models of natural language tense, temporal reference, and their interaction. Languages of nominal tense logic are a simple augmentation of Priorean tense logic. They add to the familiar Priorean languages a new sort of atomic symbol, nominals. Like propositional variables, nominals are atomic sentences and may be freely combined with other wffs using the usual connectives. When interpreting these languages we handle the Priorean components standardly, but insist that nominals must be true at one and only one time. We can think of nominals as naming this time. Logically, the change increases the expressive power of tensed languages. There are certain intuitions about the flow of time, such as irreflexivity, that cannot be expressed in Priorean languages; with nominals they can. The effects of this increase in expressive power on the usual model theoretic results for tensed languages discussed, and completeness and decidability results for several temporally interesting classes of frames are given. Various extensions of the basic system are also investigated and similar results are proved. In the final chapter a brief treatment of similarly referential interval based logics is presented. As far as natural language semantics is concerned, the change is an important one. A familiar criticism of Priorean tense logic is that as it lacks any mechanism for temporal reference, it cannot provide realistic models of natural language temporal usage. Natural language tense is at least partly about referring to times, and nowadays the deictic and anaphoric properties of tense are a focus of research. The thesis presents a uniform treatment of certain temporally referring expressions such as indexicals, and simple discourse phenomena