Gentzen's classical sequent calculus LK has explicit structural rules for
contraction and weakening. They can be absorbed (in a right-sided formulation)
by replacing the axiom P,(not P) by Gamma,P,(not P) for any context Gamma, and
replacing the original disjunction rule with Gamma,A,B implies Gamma,(A or B).
This paper presents a classical sequent calculus which is also free of
contraction and weakening, but more symmetrically: both contraction and
weakening are absorbed into conjunction, leaving the axiom rule intact. It uses
a blended conjunction rule, combining the standard context-sharing and
context-splitting rules: Gamma,Delta,A and Gamma,Sigma,B implies
Gamma,Delta,Sigma,(A and B). We refer to this system M as minimal sequent
calculus.
We prove a minimality theorem for the propositional fragment Mp: any
propositional sequent calculus S (within a standard class of right-sided
calculi) is complete if and only if S contains Mp (that is, each rule of Mp is
derivable in S). Thus one can view M as a minimal complete core of Gentzen's
LK.Comment: To appear in Annals of Pure and Applied Logic. 15 page