Positive First-order Logic on Words and Graphs

01/27/2022

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by   Denis Kuperberg, et al.

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We study FO+, a fragment of first-order logic on finite words, where monadic predicates can only appear positively. We show that there is an FO-definable language that is monotone in monadic predicates but not definable in FO+. This provides a simple proof that Lyndon's preservation theorem fails on finite structures. We lift this example language to finite graphs, thereby providing a new result of independent interest for FO-definable graph classes: negation might be needed even when the class is closed under addition of edges. We finally show that given a regular language of finite words, it is undecidable whether it is definable in FO+.