Relational Sums and Splittings in Categories of L-fuzzy Relations

Abstract

Dedekind categories and similar structures provide a suitable framework to reason about binary relations in an abstract setting. Arrow categories extend this theory by certain operations and axioms so that additional aspects of L-fuzzy relations become expressible. In particular, arrow categories allow to identify crisp relations among all relations. On the other hand, the new operations and axioms in arrow categories force the category to be uniform, i.e., to be within a particular subclass of Dedekind categories. As an extension, arrow categories inherit constructions from Dedekind categories such as the definition of relational sums and splittings. However, these constructions are usually modified in arrow categories by requiring that certain relations are additionally crisp. This additional crispness requirement and the fact that the category is uniform raises a general question about these constructions in arrow categories. When can we guarantee the existence of the construction with and without the additional requirement of crispness in the given arrow category or an extension thereof? This paper provides a complete answer to this complex question for the two constructions mentioned.