Abstract Vector spaces contain a number of general structures that invite analysis in modal languages. The resulting logical systems provide an interesting counterpart to the much better-studied modal logics of topological spaces. In this programmatic paper, we investigate issues of definability and axiomatization using standard techniques for modal and hybrid languages. The analysis proceeds in stages. We first present a modal analysis of commutative groups that establishes our main techniques, next we introduce a new modal logic of linear dependence and independence in vector spaces and, finally, we study a modal logic for describing full-fledged vector spaces. While still far from covering every basic aspect of linear algebra, our discussion identifies several leads for more systematic research.

Abstract We introduce a new hybrid modal logic HSML for reasoning about sabotage-style graph games with edge deletions and provide a complete Hilbert-style axiomatization. We extend the completeness analysis to protocol models with restrictions on available edge deletions and clarify the connections between HSML-style logics of edge deletions and recent modal logics for stepwise point deletion from graphs.

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Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) can model complex information scenarios in a way that appeals to logicians. However, existing DEL implementations are ad-hoc, so we do not know how the framework really performs. For this purpose, we want to hook up with the best available model checking and SAT techniques in computational logic. We do this by first providing a bridge: a new faithful representation of DEL models as so-called knowledge structures that allow for symbolic model checking. For more complex epistemic change we introduce knowledge transformers analogous to action models. Next, we show that we can now solve well-known benchmark problems in epistemic scenarios much faster than with existing methods for DEL. We also compare our approach to model checking for temporal logics. Finally, we show that our method is not just a matter of implementation, but that it raises significant issues about logical representation and update.

In this article, we develop a bimodal perspective on possibility semantics, a framework allowing partiality of states that provides an alternative modelling for classical propositional and modal logics. In particular, we define a full and faithful translation of the basic modal logic K over possibility models into a bimodal logic of partial functions over partial orders, and we show how to modulate this analysis by varying across logics and model classes that have independent topological motivations. This relates the two realms under comparison both semantically and syntactically at the level of derivations. Moreover, our analysis clarifies the interplay between the complexity of translations and axiomatizations of the corresponding logics: adding axioms to the target bimodal logic simplifies translations, or vice versa, complex translations can simplify frame conditions. We also investigate a transfer of first-order correspondence theory between possibility semantics and its bimodal counterpart. Finally, we discuss the conceptual trade-off between giving translations and giving new semantics for logical systems, and we identify a number of further research directions to which our analysis gives rise.

We explore some recent directions for the logical foundations of social action that emerge from contacts between logic, game theory, philosophy, and computer science.

Current methods for solving games embody a form of "procedural rationality" that invites logical analysis in its own right. This paper is a brief case study of Backward Induction for extensive games, replacing earlier static logical definitions by stepwise dynamic ones. We consider a number of analysis from recent years that look different conceptually, and find that they are all mathematically equivalent. This shows how an abstract logical perspective can bring out basic invariant structure in games. We then generalize this to an exploration of fixed-point logics on finite trees that best fit game-theoretic equilibria. We end with some open questions that suggest a broader program for merging current computational logics with notions and results from game theory. This paper is largely a program for opening up an area: an extended version of the technical results will be found in the forthcoming dissertation [26].

Lindstrom theorems characterize logics in terms of model-theoretic conditions such as Compactness and the Lowenheim-Skolem property. Most existing Lindstrom theorems concern extensions of first-order logic. On the other hand, many logics relevant to computer science are fragments or extensions of fragments of first-order logic, e.g., k-variable logics and various modal logics. Finding Lindstrom theorems for these languages can be challenging, as most known techniques rely on coding arguments that seem to require the full expressive power of first-order logic. In this paper, we provide Lindstrom characterizations for a number of fragments of first-order logic. These include the k-variable fragments for k > 2, Tarski's relation algebra, graded modal logic, and the binary guarded fragment. We use two different proof techniques. One is a modification of the original Lindstrom proof. The other involves the modal concepts of bisimulation, tree unraveling, and finite depth. Our results also imply semantic preservation theorems. Characterizing the 2-variable fragment or the full guarded fragment remain open problems.

Many logical systems today describe intelligent interacting agents over time. Frameworks include Interpreted Systems (IS, Fagin et al. [5]), Epistemic-Temporal Logic (ETL, Parikh & Ramanujam [13]), STIT (Belnap et al. [4]), Process Algebra and Game Semantics (Abramsky [1]). This variety is an asset, as different modeling tools can be fine-tuned to specific applications. But it may also be an obstacle, when barriers between paradigms and schools go up.

Abstract Minimal predicates P satisfying a given first-order description ϕ(P) occur widely in mathematical logic and computer science. We give an explicit first-order syntax for special first-order ‘PIA conditions’ ϕ(P) which guarantees unique existence of such minimal predicates. Our main technical result is a preservation theorem showing PIA-conditions to be expressively complete for all those first-order formulas that are preserved under a natural model-theoretic operation of ‘predicate intersection’. Next, we show how iterated predicate minimization on PIA-conditions yields a language MIN(FO) equal in expressive power to LFP(FO), first-order logic closed under smallest fixed-points for monotone operations. As a concrete illustration of these notions, we show how our sort of predicate minimization extends the usual frame correspondence theory of modal logic, leading to a proper hierarchy of modal axioms: first-order-definable, first-order fixed-point definable, and beyond.

We investigate the topological interpretation of modal logic in modern terms, using a new notion of bisimulation. We look at modal logics with interesting topological content, presenting, among others, a new proof of McKinsey and Tarski's theorem on completeness of S4 with respect to the real line, and a completeness proof for the logic of finite unions of convex sets of reals. We conclude with a broader picture of extended modal languages of space, for which the main logical questions are still wide open.

Abstract Preservation and interpolation results are obtained for L∞ω and sublogics ⊆ L∞ω such that equivalence in can be characterized by suitable back-and-forth conditions on sets of partial isomorphisms.

Modal logic becomes action logic by adding programs as in propositional dynamic logic or the /spl mu/-calculus. Modal languages can be seen as decidable fragments of first-order logic that admit a natural bisimulation, and hence enjoy a good model theory. Recently, much stronger 'guarded fragments' of first-order logic have been identified that enjoy the same pleasant features. The latter can serve as richer action languages as well. We will develop the logic of guarded fragments as a form of process theory. In particular, moving from sequential to parallel process operations correlates with moving to first-order fragments that are close to, or perhaps just over the decidable-undecidable fence.

We investigate modal deduction through translation into standard logic and set theory. In a previous paper, using a set-theoretic translation method, we proved that derivability in the minimal modal logic K, corresponds precisely to derivability in a weak, computationally attractive set theory ω In this paper, this approach is shown equivalent to working with standard first-order translations of modal formulae in a theory of general frames. The employed techniques are mainly model-theoretic and set-theoretic, and they admit extensions to richer languages and modal deductive systems than that of basic modal logic. Some of these extensions are discussed in the last part of the paper.

Transition systems can be viewed either as process diagrams or as Kripke structures. The first perspective is that of process theory, the second that of modal logic. This paper shows how various formalisms of modal logic can be brought to bear on processes. Notions of bisimulation can not only be motivated by operations on transition systems but can also be suggested by investigations of modal formalisms. To show that the equational view of processes from process algebra is closely related to modal logic, we consider various ways of looking at the relation between the calculus of basic process algebra and propositional dynamic logic. More concretely, the paper contains preservation results for various bisimulation notions, a result on the expressive power of propositional dynamic logic, and a definition of bisimulation which is the proper notion of invariance for concurrent propositional dynamic logic.

Editorial JOHAN van BENTHEM JOHAN van BENTHEM Executive Editor Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Logic and Computation, Volume 3, Issue 5, October 1993, Pages 451–453, https://doi.org/10.1093/logcom/3.5.451 Published: 01 October 1993

Journal Article Editorial Get access JOHAN van BENTHEM JOHAN van BENTHEM Executive Editor Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Logic and Computation, Volume 1, Issue 3, May 1991, Pages 301–304, https://doi.org/10.1093/logcom/1.3.301 Published: 01 May 1991

The importance of the logical ‘generalized quantifiers’ (Mostowski [1957]) for the semantics of natural language was brought out clearly in Barwise & Cooper [1981]. Basically, the idea is that a quantifier phrase QA (such as “all women”, “most children”, “no men”) refers to a set of sets of individuals, viz. those B for which (QA)B holds. Thus, e.g., given a fixed model with universe E, where ⟦A⟧ is the set of individuals forming the extension of the predicate “A” in the model. This point of view permits an elegant and uniform semantic treatment of the subject-predicate form that pervades natural language. Such denotations of quantifier phrases exhibit familiar mathematical structures. Thus, for instance, all A produces filters, and no A produces ideals. The denotation of most A is neither; but it is still monotone, in the sense of being closed under supersets. Mere closure under subsets occurs too; witness a quantifier phrase like few A. These mathematical structures are at present being used in organizing linguistic observations and formulating hypotheses about them. In addition to the already mentioned paper of Barwise & Cooper, an interesting example is Zwarts [1981], containing applications to the phenomena of “negative polarity” and “conjunction reduction”. In the course of the latter investigation, several methodological issues of a wider logical interest arose, and these have inspired the present paper. In order to present these issues, let us shift the above perspective, placing the emphasis on quantifier expressions per se (“all”, “most”, “no”, “some”, etcetera), viewed as denoting relations Q between sets of individuals.

In this paper thecanonicalmodal logics, a kind of complete modal logics introduced in K. Fine [4] and R. I. Goldblatt [5], will be characterized semantically using the concept of anultrafilter extension, an operation on frames inspired by the algebraic theory of modal logic. Theorem 8 of R. I. Goldblatt and S. K. Thomason [6] characterizing the modally definable Σ⊿-elementary classes of frames will follow as a corollary. A second corollary is Theorem 2 of [4] which states that any complete modal logic defining a Σ⊿-elementary class of frames is canonical. The main tool in obtaining these results is the duality between modal algebras and general frames developed in R. I. Goldblatt [5]. The relevant notions and results from this theory will be stated in §2. The concept of a canonical modal logic is introduced and motivated in §3, which also contains the above-mentioned theorems. In §4, a kind of appendix to the preceding discussion, preservation of first-order sentences under ultrafilter extensions (and some other relevant operations on frames) is discussed. The modal language to be considered here has an infinite supply of proposition letters (p, q, r, …), a propositional constant ⊥ (the so-calledfalsum, standing for a fixed contradiction), the usual Boolean operators ¬ (not), ∨ (or), ∨ (and), → (if … then …), and ↔ (if and only if)—with ¬ and ∨ regarded as primitives—and the two unary modal operators ◇ (possibly) and □ (necessarily)— ◇ being regarded as primitive. Modal formulas will be denoted by lower case Greek letters, sets of formulas by Greek capitals.

Modal reduction principles (MRPs) are modal formulas of the following form: Mp → Np, where M, N are (possibly empty) sequences of modal operators (i.e. □ or ◊). The notation M, N will be used to abbreviate such an MRP. We study a certain semantic correspondence between modal formulas and relational properties and obtain two main results. (1) On transitive semantic structures every MRP corresponds to a first-order relational property. (2) For the general case a syntactic criterion exists for distinguishing modal formulas with corresponding first-order properties from the others.

In this paper we prove that if L is a set of modal propositional formulas then FR(L) (the class of all frames in which every formula of L holds) is elementary, Δ-elementary or not ΣΔ-elementary. For single modal formulas the second of these cases does not occur. The model theoretic terminology and results used here are from [1]. (The underlying first order language contains only one, binary, predicate letter in addition to the identity symbol.) We presuppose familiarity with the usual notions and notations of propositional modal logic. A structure for our first order language is called a frame. (So a frame is an ordered couple 〈W, R〉 with domain W and R a binary predicate on W, i.e. a subset of W × W.) A valuation V on F is a function from the set of proposition letters to the power set of W. Using the well-known Kripke truth definition V can be extended to a function from the set of all modal propositional formulas to the power set of W. A modal propositional formula φ holds in a frame F (= 〈W, R〉) if, for all V on F, V(φ) = W. Notation: FR(φ) for the class of all frames in which φ holds. For a set L of modal propositional formulas we define FR(L) as ⋂φ∈LFR(φ). Obviously both FR(L) and cFR(L) (the complement of FR(L)) are closed under isomorphisms.

Consider modal propositional formulae, constructed using proposition-letters, connectives and the modal operators □ and ⋄. The semantic structures are frames, i.e., pairs <W, R> with R ⊆ W2. Let F, V be variables ranging respectively over frames and functions from the set of proposition-letters into the powerset of W. Then the relation may be defined, for arbitrary formulae α, following the Kripke truth-definition. From this relation we may further define Now, to every modal formula α there corresponds some property Pα of R. A particular example is obtained by considering the well-known translation of modal formulae into formulae of monadic second-order logic with a single binary first-order predicate. For these particular Pα we have for all F and w ∈ W. These formulae Pα are, however, rather intractable and more convenient ones can often be found. An especially interesting case occurs when Pα may be taken to be some first-order formula. For example, it can be seen that for all F and w ∈ W. It is customary to talk about a related correspondence, namely when for all F we have Note that this correspondence holds whenever the first one above holds.