Sequent Calculus Research Articles

Gentzen sequent calculi for some intuitionistic modal logics

Abstract Intuitionistic modal logics are extensions of intuitionistic propositional logic with modal axioms. We treat with two modal languages ${\mathscr{L}}_\Diamond $ and $\mathscr{L}_{\Diamond ,\Box }$ which extend the intuitionistic propositional language with $\Diamond $ and $\Diamond ,\Box $, respectively. Gentzen sequent calculi are established for several intuitionistic modal logics. In particular, we introduce a Gentzen sequent calculus for the well-known intuitionistic modal logic $\textsf{MIPC}$. These sequent calculi admit cut elimination and subformula property. They are decidable.

Sequent calculus for 3-valued paraconsistent logic QMPT0

AbstractWe present a sequent calculus of a paraconsistent logic QMPT0, which has the paraconsistent-type excluded middle law (PEML) as an initial sequent. Our system shows that the presence of PEML is essentially important for QMPT0. It also has special rules when the set of constant symbols is finite. We also discuss the cut-elimination property of our system.

On transformations of constant depth propositional proofs

This paper studies the complexity of constant depth propositional proofs in the cedent and sequent calculus. We discuss the relationships between the size of tree-like proofs, the size of dag-like proofs, and the heights of proofs. The main result is to correct a proof construction in an earlier paper about transformations from proofs with polylogarithmic height and constantly many formulas per cedent.

An ecumenical notion of entailment

Much has been said about intuitionistic and classical logical systems since Gentzen’s seminal work. Recently, Prawitz and others have been discussing how to put together Gentzen’s systems for classical and intuitionistic logic in a single unified system. We call Prawitz’ proposal the Ecumenical System, following the terminology introduced by Pereira and Rodriguez. In this work we present an Ecumenical sequent calculus, as opposed to the original natural deduction version, and state some proof theoretical properties of the system. We reason that sequent calculi are more amenable to extensive investigation using the tools of proof theory, such as cut-elimination and rule invertibility, hence allowing a full analysis of the notion of Ecumenical entailment. We then present some extensions of the Ecumenical sequent system and show that interesting systems arise when restricting such calculi to specific fragments. This approach of a unified system enabling both classical and intuitionistic features sheds some light not only on the logics themselves, but also on their semantical interpretations as well as on the proof theoretical properties that can arise from combining logical systems.

An intuitionistic formula hierarchy based on high‐school identities

AbstractWe revisit the notion of intuitionistic equivalence and formal proof representations by adopting the view of formulas as exponential polynomials. After observing that most of the invertible proof rules of intuitionistic (minimal) propositional sequent calculi are formula (i.e., sequent) isomorphisms corresponding to the high‐school identities, we show that one can obtain a more compact variant of a proof system, consisting of non‐invertible proof rules only, and where the invertible proof rules have been replaced by a formula normalization procedure. Moreover, for certain proof systems such as the G4ip sequent calculus of Vorob'ev, Hudelmaier, and Dyckhoff, it is even possible to see all of the non‐invertible proof rules as strict inequalities between exponential polynomials; a careful combinatorial treatment is given in order to establish this fact. Finally, we extend the exponential polynomial analogy to the first‐order quantifiers, showing that it gives rise to an intuitionistic hierarchy of formulas, resembling the classical arithmetical hierarchy, and the first one that classifies formulas while preserving isomorphism.

A logic for best explanations

ABSTRACTEfforts to formalize qualitative accounts of inference to the best explanation (IBE) confront two obstacles: the imprecise nature of such accounts and the unusual logical properties that explanations exhibit, such as contradiction-intolerance and irreflexivity. This paper aims to surmount these challenges by utilising a new, more precise theory that treats explanations as expressions that codify defeasible inferences. To formalise this account, we provide a sequent calculus in which IBE serves as an elimination rule for a connective that exhibits many of the properties associated with the behaviour of the English expression ‘That…best explains why…’. We first construct a calculus that encodes these properties at the level of the turnstile, i.e. as a metalinguistic expression for classes of defeasible consequence relations. We then show how this calculus can be conservatively extended over a language that contains a best-explains-why operator.

A Modified Subformula Property for the Modal Logic S4.2

The modal logic S4.2 is S4 with the additional axiom ◊□A ⊃ □◊A. In this article, the sequent calculus GS4.2 for this logic is presented, and by imposing an appropriate restriction on the application of the cut-rule, it is shown that, every GS4.2-provable sequent S has a GS4.2-proof such that every formula occurring in it is either a subformula of some formula in S, or the formula □¬□B or ¬□B, where □B occurs in the scope of some occurrence of □ in some formula of S. These are just the K5-subformulas of some formula in S which were introduced by us to show the modied subformula property for the modal logics K5 and K5D (Bull Sect Logic 30(2): 115–122, 2001). Some corollaries including the interpolation property for S4.2 follow from this. By slightly modifying the proof, the finite model property also follows.

A general proof certification framework for modal logic

One of the main issues in proof certification is that different theorem provers, even when designed for the same logic, tend to use different proof formalisms and produce outputs in different formats. The project ProofCert promotes the usage of a common specification language and of a small and trusted kernel in order to check proofs coming from different sources and for different logics. By relying on that idea and by using a classical focused sequent calculus as a kernel, we propose here a general framework for checking modal proofs. We present the implementation of the framework in a Prolog-like language and show how it is possible to specialize it in a simple and modular way in order to cover different proof formalisms, such as labelled systems, tableaux, sequent calculi and nested sequent calculi. We illustrate the method for the logicKby providing several examples and discuss how to further extend the approach.

Characterizing generics are material inference tickets: a proof-theoretic analysis*

ABSTRACT An adequate semantics for generic sentences must stake out positions across a range of contested territory in philosophy and linguistics. For this reason the study of generic sentences is a venue for investigating different frameworks for understanding human rationality as manifested in linguistic phenomena such as quantification, classification of individuals under kinds, defeasible reasoning, and intensionality. Despite the wide variety of semantic theories developed for generic sentences, to date these theories have been almost universally model-theoretic and representational. This essay outlines a range of proof-theoretic analyses for characterizing generics. Particular attention is given to an expressivist proof-theory that can be traced to 1) work on logical syntax that Carnap undertook prior to his turn toward truth-conditional model theory in the late 1930s, and 2) research on sequent calculi and natural deduction systems that originate in work from Gentzen and Prawitz.1 1 This essay offers a more precise exposition of some of the material discussed in the first two chapters of my dissertation (Stovall 2015a). These ideas developed in the context of a working group on non-monotonic logic run by Robert Brandom, and they were subsequently clarified through the work of Nissim Francez (particularly Francez 2015). I am indebted to many people for feedback and criticism on this essay, though I am sure none among them would agree with everything I say and do here. I would particularly like to thank Brandom, Francez, Ulf Hlobil, Daniel Kaplan, Jared Millson, Bernhard Nickel, Jaroslav Peregrin, Jeffry Pelletier, Thomas Ricketts, Mark Risjord, Shawn Standefer, and two reviewers for this journal. Work on this essay was supported by the joint Lead-Agency research grant between the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF) and the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality, GF17-33808L. It was substantially revised prior to its final submission.

A Classical Sequent Calculus with Dependent Types

Dependent types are a key feature of the proof assistants based on the Curry-Howard isomorphism. It is well known that this correspondence can be extended to classical logic by enriching the language of proofs with control operators. However, they are known to misbehave in the presence of dependent types, unless dependencies are restricted to values. Moreover, while sequent calculi naturally support continuation-passing-style interpretations, there is no such presentation of a language with dependent types. The main achievement of this article is to give a sequent calculus presentation of a call-by-value language with a control operator and dependent types, and to justify its soundness through a continuation-passing-style translation. We start from the call-by-value version of the λμ˜μ -calculus. We design a minimal language with a value restriction and a type system that includes a list of explicit dependencies to maintain type safety. We then show how to relax the value restriction and introduce delimited continuations to directly prove the consistency by means of a continuation-passing-style translation. Finally, we relate our calculus to a similar system by Lepigre and present a methodology to transfer properties from this system to our own.

A proof-theoretic approach to scope ambiguity in compositional vector space models

We investigate the extent to which compositional vector space models can be used to account for scope ambiguity in quantified sentences (of the form Every man loves some woman). Such sentences introduce one reading for each quantifier. We combine a polarised focussed sequent calculus for the non-associative Lambek Calculus NL as described in Moortgat and Moot (2011) with a non-compositional ap- proach to quantifier scope in vector space semantics introduced by Hedges and Sadrzadeh (2016) and (Sadrzadeh 2016). In particular, we obtain an automatic and compositional procedure for obtaining quantifier scope ambiguity in vector space models of meaning.

Non-transitive relevant implication corresponding to classical logic consequence

In this paper we first develop a logic independent account of relevant implication. We propose a stipulative denition of what it means for a multiset of premises to relevantly L-imply a multiset of conclusions, where L is a Tarskian consequence relation: the premises relevantly imply the conclusions iff there is an abstraction of the pair <premises, conclusions> such that the abstracted premises L-imply the abstracted conclusions and none of the abstracted premises or the abstracted conclusions can be omitted while still maintaining valid L-consequence. Subsequently we apply this denition to the classical logic (CL) consequence relation to obtain NTR-consequence, i.e. the relevant CL-consequence relation in our sense, and develop a sequent calculus that is sound and complete with regard to relevant CL-consequence. We present a sound and complete sequent calculus for NTR. In a next step we add rules for an object language relevant implication to thesequent calculus. The object language implication reflects exactly the NTR-consequence relation. One can see the resulting logic NTR-> as a relevant logic in the traditional sense of the word. By means of a translation to the relevant logic R, we show that the presented logic NTR is very close to relevance logics in the Anderson-Belnap-Dunn-Routley-Meyer tradition. However, unlike usual relevant logics, NTR is decidable for the full language, Disjunctive Syllogism (A and ~AvB relevantly imply B) and Adjunction (A and B relevantly imply A&B) are valid, and neither Modus Ponens nor the Cut rule are admissible.

Bi-Classical Connexive Logic and its Modal Extension: Cut-elimination, completeness and duality

In this study, a new paraconsistent four-valued logic called bi-classical connexive logic (BCC) is introduced as a Gentzen-type sequent calculus. Cut-elimination and completeness theorems for BCC are proved, and it is shown to be decidable. Duality property for BCC is demonstrated as its characteristic property. This property does not hold for typical paraconsistent logics with an implication connective. The same results as those for BCC are also obtained for MBCC, a modal extension of BCC.

Complexity of translations from resolution to sequent calculus

Resolution and sequent calculus are two well-known formal proof systems. Their differences make them suitable for distinct tasks. Resolution and its variants are very efficient for automated reasoning and are in fact the theoretical basis of many theorem provers. However, being intentionally machine oriented, the resolution calculus is not as natural for human beings and the input problem needs to be pre-processed to clause normal form. Sequent calculus, on the other hand, is a modular formalism that is useful for analysing meta-properties of various logics and is, therefore, popular among proof theorists. The input problem does not need to be pre-processed, and proofs are more detailed. However, proofs also tend to be larger and more verbose. When the worlds of proof theory and automated theorem proving meet, translations between resolution and sequent calculus are often necessary. In this paper, we compare three translation methods and analyse their complexity.

A Graphical Deep Inference System for Intuitionistic Logic

A graphical approach to intuitionistic propositional logic is presented. The system GrIn is a deep inference system and is formulated in terms of Peirce’s existential graphs. GrIn is shown to be sound and complete with respect to the class of all Heyting algebras. The system GrIn is shown to be equivalent to the Gentzen sequent calculus G3ip via translations between intuitionistic graphs and intuitionistic formulae. We also discuss the intuitionistic interpretation of logical constants proposed by the graphical approach.

Labeled Sequent Calculus for Orthologic

Orthologic (OL) is non-classical logic and has been studied as a part of quantumlogic. OL is based on an ortholattice and is also called minimal quantum logic. Sequent calculus is used as a tool for proof in logic and has been examinedfor several decades. Although there are many studies on sequent calculus forOL, these sequent calculi have some problems. In particular, they do not includeimplication connective and they are mostly incompatible with the cut-eliminationtheorem. In this paper, we introduce new labeled sequent calculus called LGOI, and show that this sequent calculus solve the above problems. It is alreadyknown that OL is decidable. We prove that decidability is preserved when theimplication connective is added to OL.

GENERALITY AND EXISTENCE 1: QUANTIFICATION AND FREE LOGIC

AbstractIn this paper, I motivate a cut free sequent calculus for classical logic with first order quantification, allowing for singular terms free of existential import. Along the way, I motivate a criterion for rules designed to answer Prior’s question about what distinguishes rules for logical concepts, like conjunction from apparently similar rules for putative concepts like Prior’s tonk, and I show that the rules for the quantifiers—and the existence predicate—satisfy that condition.

Gentzen-Type Sequent Calculi for Extended Belnap–Dunn Logics with Classical Negation: A General Framework

Gentzen-type sequent calculi GBD+, GBDe, GBD1, and GBD2 are respectively introduced for De and Omori’s axiomatic extensions BD+, BDe, BD1, and BD2 of Belnap–Dunn logic by adding classical negation. These calculi are constructed based on a small modification of the original characteristic axiom scheme for negated implication. Theorems for syntactically and semantically embedding these calculi into a Gentzen-type sequent calculus LK for classical logic are proved. The cut-elimination, decidability, and completeness theorems for these calculi are obtained using these embedding theorems. Similar results excluding cut-elimination results are also obtained for alternative Gentzen-type sequent calculi gBD+, gBDe, gBD1, and gBD2 for BD+, BDe, BD1, and BD2, respectively. These alternative calculi are constructed based on the original characteristic axiom scheme for negated implication.

The Sequent Calculus of Skew Monoidal Categories

Szlachányi's skew monoidal categories are a well-motivated variation of monoidal categories in which the unitors and associator are not required to be natural isomorphisms, but merely natural transformations in a particular direction. We present a sequent calculus for skew monoidal categories, building on the recent formulation by one of the authors of a sequent calculus for the Tamari order (skew semigroup categories). In this calculus, antecedents consist of a stoup (an optional formula) followed by a context (a list of formulae), and the connectives unit and tensor behave like in intuitionistic non-commutative linear logic (the logic of monoidal categories) except that the left rules may only be applied in stoup position. We show the admissibility of two forms cut (stoup cut and context cut), and prove the calculus sound and complete with respect to existence of maps in the free skew monoidal category. We then introduce an equivalence relation on sequent calculus derivations and prove that there is a one-to-one correspondence between equivalence classes of derivations and maps in the free skew monoidal category. Finally, we identify a subcalculus of focused derivations, and establish that it contains exactly one canonical representative from each equivalence class. As an end result, we obtain simple algorithms both for deciding equality of maps in the free skew monoidal category and for enumerating any homset without duplicates, in particular, for deciding whether there is a map. We have formalized this development in the dependently typed programming language Agda.

A Cut-Free Sequent Calculus for Defeasible Erotetic Inferences

In recent years, the effort to formalize erotetic inferences---i.e., inferences to and from questions---has become a central concern for those working in erotetic logic. However, few have sought to formulate a proof theory for these inferences. To fill this lacuna, we construct a calculus for (classes of) sequents that are sound and complete for two species of erotetic inferences studied by Inferential Erotetic Logic (IEL): erotetic evocation and erotetic implication. While an effort has been made to axiomatize the former in a sequent system, there is currently no proof theory for the latter. Moreover, the extant axiomatization of erotetic evocation fails to capture its defeasible character and provides no rules for introducing or eliminating question-forming operators. In contrast, our calculus encodes defeasibility conditions on sequents and provides rules governing the introduction and elimination of erotetic formulas. We demonstrate that an elimination theorem holds for a version of the cut rule that applies to both declarative and erotetic formulas and that the rules for the axiomatic account of question evocation in IEL are admissible in our system.