Theorem proving with structured theories

  • Authors:

  • Sheila McIlraith;Eyal Amir

  • Affiliations:

  • Knowledge Systems Laboratory and Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA;Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

  • Venue:
  • IJCAI'01 Proceedings of the 17th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

Motivated by the problem of query answering over multiple structured commonsense theories, we exploit graph-based techniques to improve the efficiency of theorem proving for structured theories. Theories are organized into subtheories that are minimally connected by the literals they share. We presentmessage-passing algorithms that reason over these theories using consequence finding, specializing our algorithms for the case of first-order resolution, and for batch and concurrent theorem proving. We provide an algorithm that restricts the interaction between subtheories by exploiting the polarity of literals. We attempt to minimize the reasoning within each individual partition by exploiting existing algorithms for focused incremental and general consequence finding. Finally, we propose an algorithm that compiles each subtheory into one in a reduced sublanguage. We have proven the soundness and completeness of all of these algorithms.