Locality Theorems in Semiring Semantics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bizière, Clotilde, Grädel, Erich, Naaf, Matthias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Bizière, Clotilde
Grädel, Erich
Naaf, Matthias
author_facet Bizière, Clotilde
Grädel, Erich
Naaf, Matthias
contents Semiring semantics of first-order logic generalises classical Boolean semantics by permitting truth values from a commutative semiring, which can model information such as costs or access restrictions. This raises the question to what extent classical model theoretic properties still apply, and how this depends on the algebraic properties of the semiring. In this paper, we study this question for the classical locality theorems due to Hanf and Gaifman. We prove that Hanf's Locality Theorem generalises to all semirings with idempotent operations, but fails for many non-idempotent semirings. We then consider Gaifman normal forms and show that for formulae with free variables, Gaifman's Theorem does not generalise beyond the Boolean semiring. Also for sentences, it fails in the natural semiring and the tropical semiring. Our main result, however, is a constructive proof of the existence of Gaifman normal forms for min-max and lattice semirings. The proof implies a stronger version of Gaifman's classical theorem in Boolean semantics: every sentence has a Gaifman normal form which does not add negations.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_12627
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
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spellingShingle Locality Theorems in Semiring Semantics
Bizière, Clotilde
Grädel, Erich
Naaf, Matthias
Logic in Computer Science
Semiring semantics of first-order logic generalises classical Boolean semantics by permitting truth values from a commutative semiring, which can model information such as costs or access restrictions. This raises the question to what extent classical model theoretic properties still apply, and how this depends on the algebraic properties of the semiring. In this paper, we study this question for the classical locality theorems due to Hanf and Gaifman. We prove that Hanf's Locality Theorem generalises to all semirings with idempotent operations, but fails for many non-idempotent semirings. We then consider Gaifman normal forms and show that for formulae with free variables, Gaifman's Theorem does not generalise beyond the Boolean semiring. Also for sentences, it fails in the natural semiring and the tropical semiring. Our main result, however, is a constructive proof of the existence of Gaifman normal forms for min-max and lattice semirings. The proof implies a stronger version of Gaifman's classical theorem in Boolean semantics: every sentence has a Gaifman normal form which does not add negations.
title Locality Theorems in Semiring Semantics
topic Logic in Computer Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.12627