39 research outputs found
Wreath Products of Forest Algebras, with Applications to Tree Logics
We use the recently developed theory of forest algebras to find algebraic
characterizations of the languages of unranked trees and forests definable in
various logics. These include the temporal logics CTL and EF, and first-order
logic over the ancestor relation. While the characterizations are in general
non-effective, we are able to use them to formulate necessary conditions for
definability and provide new proofs that a number of languages are not
definable in these logics
EF+EX Forest Algebras
We examine languages of unranked forests definable using the temporal
operators EF and EX. We characterize the languages definable in this logic, and
various fragments thereof, using the syntactic forest algebras introduced by
Bojanczyk and Walukiewicz. Our algebraic characterizations yield efficient
algorithms for deciding when a given language of forests is definable in this
logic. The proofs are based on understanding the wreath product closures of a
few small algebras, for which we introduce a general ideal theory for forest
algebras. This combines ideas from the work of Bojanczyk and Walukiewicz for
the analogous logics on binary trees and from early work of Stiffler on wreath
product of finite semigroups
Piecewise testable tree languages
This paper presents a decidable characterization of tree languages that can
be defined by a boolean combination of Sigma_1 sentences. This is a tree
extension of the Simon theorem, which says that a string language can be
defined by a boolean combination of Sigma_1 sentences if and only if its
syntactic monoid is J-trivial
Deciding definability in FO2(<h,<v) on trees
We provide a decidable characterization of regular forest languages definable
in FO2(<h,<v). By FO2(<h,<v) we refer to the two variable fragment of first
order logic built from the descendant relation and the following sibling
relation. In terms of expressive power it corresponds to a fragment of the
navigational core of XPath that contains modalities for going up to some
ancestor, down to some descendant, left to some preceding sibling, and right to
some following sibling. We also show that our techniques can be applied to
other two variable first-order logics having exactly the same vertical
modalities as FO2(<h,<v) but having different horizontal modalities