One quantifier alternation in first-order logic with modular predicates
RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications - Informatique Théorique et Applications, Tome 49 (2015) no. 1, pp. 1-22.

Adding modular predicates yields a generalization of first-order logic FO over words. The expressive power of FO[<,MOD] with order comparison x<y and predicates for ximodn has been investigated by Barrington et al. The study of FO[<,MOD]-fragments was initiated by Chaubard et al. More recently, Dartois and Paperman showed that definability in the two-variable fragment FO 2 [<,MOD] is decidable. In this paper we continue this line of work. We give an effective algebraic characterization of the word languages in Σ 2 [<,MOD]. The fragment Σ 2 consists of first-order formulas in prenex normal form with two blocks of quantifiers starting with an existential block. In addition we show that Δ 2 [<,MOD], the largest subclass of Σ 2 [<,MOD] which is closed under negation, has the same expressive power as two-variable logic FO 2 [<,MOD]. This generalizes the result FO 2 [<]=Δ 2 [<] of Thérien and Wilke to modular predicates. As a byproduct, we obtain another decidable characterization of FO 2 [<,MOD].

Reçu le :
Accepté le :
DOI : 10.1051/ita/2014024
Classification : 68Q70, 03D05, 20M35, 68Q45
Mots clés : Finite monoid, syntactic homomorphism, logical fragment, first-order logic, modular predicate
Kufleitner, Manfred 1 ; Walter, Tobias 1

1 University of Stuttgart, FMI, Germany.
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Kufleitner, Manfred; Walter, Tobias. One quantifier alternation in first-order logic with modular predicates. RAIRO - Theoretical Informatics and Applications - Informatique Théorique et Applications, Tome 49 (2015) no. 1, pp. 1-22. doi : 10.1051/ita/2014024. http://www.numdam.org/articles/10.1051/ita/2014024/

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