8,866 research outputs found
The descriptive complexity approach to LOGCFL
Building upon the known generalized-quantifier-based first-order
characterization of LOGCFL, we lay the groundwork for a deeper investigation.
Specifically, we examine subclasses of LOGCFL arising from varying the arity
and nesting of groupoidal quantifiers. Our work extends the elaborate theory
relating monoidal quantifiers to NC1 and its subclasses. In the absence of the
BIT predicate, we resolve the main issues: we show in particular that no single
outermost unary groupoidal quantifier with FO can capture all the context-free
languages, and we obtain the surprising result that a variant of Greibach's
``hardest context-free language'' is LOGCFL-complete under quantifier-free
BIT-free projections. We then prove that FO with unary groupoidal quantifiers
is strictly more expressive with the BIT predicate than without. Considering a
particular groupoidal quantifier, we prove that first-order logic with majority
of pairs is strictly more expressive than first-order with majority of
individuals. As a technical tool of independent interest, we define the notion
of an aperiodic nondeterministic finite automaton and prove that FO
translations are precisely the mappings computed by single-valued aperiodic
nondeterministic finite transducers.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
On Second-Order Monadic Monoidal and Groupoidal Quantifiers
We study logics defined in terms of second-order monadic monoidal and
groupoidal quantifiers. These are generalized quantifiers defined by monoid and
groupoid word-problems, equivalently, by regular and context-free languages. We
give a computational classification of the expressive power of these logics
over strings with varying built-in predicates. In particular, we show that
ATIME(n) can be logically characterized in terms of second-order monadic
monoidal quantifiers
A Crevice on the Crane Beach: Finite-Degree Predicates
First-order logic (FO) over words is shown to be equiexpressive with FO
equipped with a restricted set of numerical predicates, namely the order, a
binary predicate MSB, and the finite-degree predicates: FO[Arb] = FO[<,
MSB, Fin].
The Crane Beach Property (CBP), introduced more than a decade ago, is true of
a logic if all the expressible languages admitting a neutral letter are
regular.
Although it is known that FO[Arb] does not have the CBP, it is shown here
that the (strong form of the) CBP holds for both FO[<, Fin] and FO[<, MSB].
Thus FO[<, Fin] exhibits a form of locality and the CBP, and can still express
a wide variety of languages, while being one simple predicate away from the
expressive power of FO[Arb]. The counting ability of FO[<, Fin] is studied as
an application.Comment: Submitte
Logic Meets Algebra: the Case of Regular Languages
The study of finite automata and regular languages is a privileged meeting
point of algebra and logic. Since the work of Buchi, regular languages have
been classified according to their descriptive complexity, i.e. the type of
logical formalism required to define them. The algebraic point of view on
automata is an essential complement of this classification: by providing
alternative, algebraic characterizations for the classes, it often yields the
only opportunity for the design of algorithms that decide expressibility in
some logical fragment.
We survey the existing results relating the expressibility of regular
languages in logical fragments of MSO[S] with algebraic properties of their
minimal automata. In particular, we show that many of the best known results in
this area share the same underlying mechanics and rely on a very strong
relation between logical substitutions and block-products of pseudovarieties of
monoid. We also explain the impact of these connections on circuit complexity
theory.Comment: 37 page
Constraint Satisfaction with Counting Quantifiers
We initiate the study of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) in the
presence of counting quantifiers, which may be seen as variants of CSPs in the
mould of quantified CSPs (QCSPs). We show that a single counting quantifier
strictly between exists^1:=exists and exists^n:=forall (the domain being of
size n) already affords the maximal possible complexity of QCSPs (which have
both exists and forall), being Pspace-complete for a suitably chosen template.
Next, we focus on the complexity of subsets of counting quantifiers on clique
and cycle templates. For cycles we give a full trichotomy -- all such problems
are in L, NP-complete or Pspace-complete. For cliques we come close to a
similar trichotomy, but one case remains outstanding. Afterwards, we consider
the generalisation of CSPs in which we augment the extant quantifier
exists^1:=exists with the quantifier exists^j (j not 1). Such a CSP is already
NP-hard on non-bipartite graph templates. We explore the situation of this
generalised CSP on bipartite templates, giving various conditions for both
tractability and hardness -- culminating in a classification theorem for
general graphs. Finally, we use counting quantifiers to solve the complexity of
a concrete QCSP whose complexity was previously open
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