The Adjacent Fragment and Quine's Limits of Decision

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bednarczyk, Bartosz, Kojelis, Daumantas, Pratt-Hartmann, Ian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Bednarczyk, Bartosz
Kojelis, Daumantas
Pratt-Hartmann, Ian
author_facet Bednarczyk, Bartosz
Kojelis, Daumantas
Pratt-Hartmann, Ian
contents We introduce the adjacent fragment AF of first-order logic, obtained by restricting the sequences of variables occurring as arguments in atomic formulas. The adjacent fragment generalizes (after a routine renaming) the two-variable fragment of first-order logic as well as the so-called fluted fragment. We show that the adjacent fragment has the finite model property, and that the satisfiability problem for its k-variable sub-fragment is in (k-1)-NExpTime. Using known results on the fluted fragment, it follows that the satisfiability problem for the whole adjacent fragment is Tower-complete. We additionally consider the effect of the adjacency requirement on the well-known guarded fragment of first-order logic, whose satisfiability problem is TwoExpTime-complete. We show that the satisfiability problem for the intersection of the adjacent and guarded adjacent fragments remains TwoExpTime-hard. Finally, we show that any relaxation of the adjacency condition on the allowed order of variables in argument sequences yields a logic whose satisfiability and finite satisfiability problems are undecidable.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_01231
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Adjacent Fragment and Quine's Limits of Decision
Bednarczyk, Bartosz
Kojelis, Daumantas
Pratt-Hartmann, Ian
Logic in Computer Science
We introduce the adjacent fragment AF of first-order logic, obtained by restricting the sequences of variables occurring as arguments in atomic formulas. The adjacent fragment generalizes (after a routine renaming) the two-variable fragment of first-order logic as well as the so-called fluted fragment. We show that the adjacent fragment has the finite model property, and that the satisfiability problem for its k-variable sub-fragment is in (k-1)-NExpTime. Using known results on the fluted fragment, it follows that the satisfiability problem for the whole adjacent fragment is Tower-complete. We additionally consider the effect of the adjacency requirement on the well-known guarded fragment of first-order logic, whose satisfiability problem is TwoExpTime-complete. We show that the satisfiability problem for the intersection of the adjacent and guarded adjacent fragments remains TwoExpTime-hard. Finally, we show that any relaxation of the adjacency condition on the allowed order of variables in argument sequences yields a logic whose satisfiability and finite satisfiability problems are undecidable.
title The Adjacent Fragment and Quine's Limits of Decision
topic Logic in Computer Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.01231