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Guarded Quantification in Least Fixed Point Logic

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Abstract

We develop a variant of Least Fixed Point logic based on First Orderlogic with a relaxed version of guarded quantification. We develop aGame Theoretic Semantics of this logic, and find that under reasonableconditions, guarding quantification does not reduce the expressibilityof Least Fixed Point logic. But we also find that the guarded version ofa least fixed point algorithm may have a greater time complexity thanthe unguarded version, by a linear factor.

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McColm, G. Guarded Quantification in Least Fixed Point Logic. Journal of Logic, Language and Information 13, 61–110 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026107209351

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