Document Type
Report
Date
9-10-1994
Keywords
fluted formulas
Language
English
Disciplines
Computer Sciences
Description/Abstract
In the predicate calculus, variables provide a flexible indexing service that selects the actual arguments to a predicate letter from among possible arguments that precede the predicate letter (in the parse of the formula). In the process of selection, the possible arguments can be permuted, repeated (used more than once), and skipped. If this service is withheld, so that arguments must be the immediately preceding ones, taken in the order in which they occur, the formula is said to be fluted. Quine showed that if a fluted formula contains only homogeneous conjunction (conjoins only subformulas of equal arity), then the satisfiability of the formula is decidable. It remained an open question whether the satisfiability of a fluted formula without this restriction is decidable. This paper answers that question.
Recommended Citation
Purdy, William C., "Fluted Formulas and the Limits of Decidability" (1994). Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Technical Reports. 154.
https://surface.syr.edu/eecs_techreports/154
Source
local
Additional Information
School of Computer and Information Science, Syracuse University, SU-CIS-94-5