On existentially quantified conjunctions of.pdfVIP

On existentially quantied conjunctions ofatomic formulae of L+ Domenico CantoneyUniversity of Catania, Italy Alessandra CavarrazUniversity of Catania, ItalyEugenio OmodeoxUniversity of LAquila, ItalyAbstractSucient conditions for an 9, 89, or 889 prenex L+-sentence to be translatableinto the variable-free formalism L will be singled out in what follows. An ecienttest based on such conditions will also be described. Through minor modications ofthis testing algorithm, one can obtain the translation when the sucient conditionsare met.1 IntroductionL is a ground equational formalism that can compete with rst-order predicate logicas a support for number theories as well as for full-blown theories of sets (cf. [TG87]).Supercially, it resembles the relational languages grown inside the database and knowl-edge base eld more than the specication languages inspired by traditional logic. Inanalogy with rst-order logic, fragments of which have been endowed with an executablesemantics, L has been proposed as a support for programming languages (cf. [BL92] and[FL94]). From the standpoint of automated deduction, L has the appeal of being devoidof quantiers|and even of variables: accordingly, performing deductions in L is akin tothe process of carrying out algebraic simplications, without even the burden of having toinstantiate variables.In spite of the power it demonstrates when the aim is to formalize |and to reasoninside| a strong theory (i.e. a theory where the operation of pairing and conjugatedprojections are denable), L shows limitations when compared with plain predicate cal-culus. It is easily seen that any formula of L can be translated into a rst-order sentenceinvolving at most three variables; however there are rst-order sentences that have nologically equivalent sentence in three variables (the collection of all such sentences is noteven recursive, cf. [TG87]), and moreover there are cases when a valid sentence in threevariables cannot be prov