1,960 research outputs found
On the rational subset problem for groups
We use language theory to study the rational subset problem for groups and
monoids. We show that the decidability of this problem is preserved under graph
of groups constructions with finite edge groups. In particular, it passes
through free products amalgamated over finite subgroups and HNN extensions with
finite associated subgroups. We provide a simple proof of a result of
Grunschlag showing that the decidability of this problem is a virtual property.
We prove further that the problem is decidable for a direct product of a group
G with a monoid M if and only if membership is uniformly decidable for
G-automata subsets of M. It follows that a direct product of a free group with
any abelian group or commutative monoid has decidable rational subset
membership.Comment: 19 page
Global Numerical Constraints on Trees
We introduce a logical foundation to reason on tree structures with
constraints on the number of node occurrences. Related formalisms are limited
to express occurrence constraints on particular tree regions, as for instance
the children of a given node. By contrast, the logic introduced in the present
work can concisely express numerical bounds on any region, descendants or
ancestors for instance. We prove that the logic is decidable in single
exponential time even if the numerical constraints are in binary form. We also
illustrate the usage of the logic in the description of numerical constraints
on multi-directional path queries on XML documents. Furthermore, numerical
restrictions on regular languages (XML schemas) can also be concisely described
by the logic. This implies a characterization of decidable counting extensions
of XPath queries and XML schemas. Moreover, as the logic is closed under
negation, it can thus be used as an optimal reasoning framework for testing
emptiness, containment and equivalence
On the equivalence, containment, and covering problems for the regular and context-free languages
We consider the complexity of the equivalence and containment problems for regular expressions and context-free grammars, concentrating on the relationship between complexity and various language properties. Finiteness and boundedness of languages are shown to play important roles in the complexity of these problems. An encoding into grammars of Turing machine computations exponential in the size of the grammar is used to prove several exponential lower bounds. These lower bounds include exponential time for testing equivalence of grammars generating finite sets, and exponential space for testing equivalence of non-self-embedding grammars. Several problems which might be complex because of this encoding are shown to simplify for linear grammars. Other problems considered include grammatical covering and structural equivalence for right-linear, linear, and arbitrary grammars
On Equivalence and Canonical Forms in the LF Type Theory
Decidability of definitional equality and conversion of terms into canonical
form play a central role in the meta-theory of a type-theoretic logical
framework. Most studies of definitional equality are based on a confluent,
strongly-normalizing notion of reduction. Coquand has considered a different
approach, directly proving the correctness of a practical equivalance algorithm
based on the shape of terms. Neither approach appears to scale well to richer
languages with unit types or subtyping, and neither directly addresses the
problem of conversion to canonical.
In this paper we present a new, type-directed equivalence algorithm for the
LF type theory that overcomes the weaknesses of previous approaches. The
algorithm is practical, scales to richer languages, and yields a new notion of
canonical form sufficient for adequate encodings of logical systems. The
algorithm is proved complete by a Kripke-style logical relations argument
similar to that suggested by Coquand. Crucially, both the algorithm itself and
the logical relations rely only on the shapes of types, ignoring dependencies
on terms.Comment: 41 page
Reduction of context-free grammars
This paper is concerned with the following problem: Given a context-free grammar G, find a context-free grammar with the fewest nonterminal symbols or with the fewest rules that is equivalent to G. A reduction procedure is presented for finding such a reduced context-free grammar that is structurally equivalent to a given G. On the other hand, it is proved that there is no finite procedure for finding such a reduced context-free grammar that is weakly equivalent to a given G
A dependent nominal type theory
Nominal abstract syntax is an approach to representing names and binding
pioneered by Gabbay and Pitts. So far nominal techniques have mostly been
studied using classical logic or model theory, not type theory. Nominal
extensions to simple, dependent and ML-like polymorphic languages have been
studied, but decidability and normalization results have only been established
for simple nominal type theories. We present a LF-style dependent type theory
extended with name-abstraction types, prove soundness and decidability of
beta-eta-equivalence checking, discuss adequacy and canonical forms via an
example, and discuss extensions such as dependently-typed recursion and
induction principles
- …