Lost in Translation: Language Independence in Propositional Logic - Application to Belief Revision and Belief Merging

Lost in Translation: Language Independence in Propositional Logic - Application to Belief Revision and Belief Merging

Pierre Marquis

CRIL-CNRS, Universit´e d’Artois Lens, France

[email protected]

Nicolas Schwind

CRIL-CNRS, Universit´e d’Artois Lens, France

[email protected]

Abstract

Despite the importance of propositional logic in ar- tificial intelligence, the notion of language indepen- dence in the propositional setting (not to be con- found with syntax independence) has not received much attention so far. In this paper, we define language independence for a propositional opera- tor as robustness w.r.t. symbol translation. We provide a number of characterizations results for such translations. We motivate the need to focus on symbol translations of restricted types, and iden- tify several families of interest. We identify the computational complexity of recognizing symbol translations from those families. Finally, as a case study, we investigate the robustness of belief re- vision/merging operators w.r.t. translations of dif- ferent types. It turns out that rational belief revi- sion/merging operators are not guaranteed to offer the most basic (yet non-trivial) form of language in- dependence; operators based on the Hamming dis- tance do not suffer from this drawback but are less robust than operators based on the drastic distance.

1 Introduction

In propositional logic, propositional symbols are the formal counterparts of propositions which are not analyzed (i.e., de- composed) within the language of the logic but can be arbi- trarily sophisticated nevertheless. For instance, an (informal) proposition like ”John’s house is located northern to the sta- tion” can be represented by a propositional symbol like p.

This symbolpis atomic in the logic, which implies that, from palone, one cannot infer that concepts like ”John”, ”house”,

”station”, ”being northern to” are used to define its actual meaning. Alternatively, the same informal proposition can be represented by slightly more complex formulae, liker⊕s wherermeans ”John’s house is located northern and western to the station” andsmeans ”John’s house is located northern and eastern to the station”.

The problem of which informal propositions of interest should be associated with propositional symbols is not ruled by logic since this is mainly a domain-dependent modeling issue. What is important from a logical point of view is to

make a representation choice so that every proposition of in- terest can be represented as aformulabased on the chosen propositional symbols (otherwise the corresponding proposi- tional language is not expressive enough w.r.t. the proposi- tions of interest.) Several choices for propositional symbols are usually possible without questioning such an expressive- ness issue.

In artificial intelligence, propositional formulae are used to build propositional structures which represent propositional information. In applications where propositional logic is enough from a representation perspective, information pro- cessing can be modeled as a combination of queries (e.g., de- ducing some facts from the available beliefs or inferring some plausible conclusions from them) and transformations (e.g., forgetting some facts, revising some beliefs.) Propositional queries and propositional transformations can be formalized as propositional operators, which are mappings from propo- sitional structures to propositional structures.

In this paper, we address the language independence issue for propositional operators. Intuitively, a propositional opera- torΩis language-independent iff whenever the representation language is modified in such a way that symbols in the origi- nal language correspond to formulae in the target language, if the input ofΩis modified so as to reflect the language change, then the output ofΩshould be modified accordingly. Thus, language change can be modeled by symbol translations (i.e., substitutions), and language independence for a propositional operator is the faculty for it to be robust w.r.t. symbol trans- lations.

For instance, assume thattrepresents the fact that ”Mary’s house is located northern to the station”. If it is known that

”John’s house is located northern to the station” (p) and that

”John’s house is located northern to the station” if and only if ”Mary’s house is located northern to the station” (p ⇔ t) since Mary and John live together, then one can deduce that

”Mary’s house is located northern to the station”: t holds.

If we consider another representation choice, where ”John’s house is located northern to the station” is represented byr⊕ s, then the same conclusion follows: fromr⊕sand(r⊕s)⇔ t,tcan still be deduced. Accordingly, the deduction operator is robust when the symbol translationσsuch thatσ(p) =r⊕s is applied to the given belief base.

Clearly, such a notion of language independence should not be confused with notions of syntax independence, which

reflects the ability to be robust w.r.t. substitution of formulae (or sets of formulae) by equivalent formulae (or sets), a topic which got much attention in artificial intelligence. Quite sur- prisingly, the language independence issue in propositional logic did not receive so far a systematic investigation, despite the fundamental nature of the issue and the significance of propositional languages in artificial intelligence.

This paper is intended to fill the gap. After some formal preliminaries (Section 2), we point out the notion of symbol translation, define the notion of language independence as ro- bustness w.r.t. symbol translations, and present several refine- ments of it in Section 3. We provide some complexity results in Section 4. As a case study, in Section 5, we put some be- lief revision/merging operators in the setting and identify the level of language independence achieved by those operators.

We discuss some related work in Section 6, before conclud- ing.

2 Formal Preliminaries

We consider a countably infinite setPSof propositional sym- bols. For any finite subset X ofPS,PROPX denotes the propositional language overX defined in the usual way. For every formulaα,α⁰is equivalent toαandα¹is equivalent to

¬α. For every formulaα,Var(α)is the set of propositional symbols occurring inα.

An interpretationωoverXis a mapping fromXto{0,1}, an associated canonical term is a term overX(i.e., a conjunc- tion of literals overX) such that for eachx∈X,xoccurs in it ifω(x) = 1, else¬xoccurs in it. The notion of satisfaction of a formula is the usual one. |=denotes logical entailment and≡denotes logical equivalence.

A formulaαis said to be generated from a setC of con- nectives and a setΣof formulae iffα ∈Σor there exists a connectivec∈Cof arityn >0such thatα≡c(α1, . . . , αn) where eachα_i(i ∈1, . . . , n) is generated fromCandΣ. A setCof connectives is said to be functionally complete w.r.t.

a set of variablesX given a setΣof formulae iff for every propositional formulaαgenerated fromC andX, there ex- ists a propositional formulaβ generated fromCandΣsuch thatβ ≡α.

In the following, we are interested in the robustness to symbol translations offered by propositional operators over propositional structures:

Definition 1 (propositional structure) A propositional st- ructure Σover a finite setX of propositional symbols is a vector of sets of propositional formulae fromPROPX (only finite vectors and finite sets are considered.) Ifnis the dimen- sion of the vector,Σis ann-propositional structure.

Sets are interpreted conjunctively, so that two sets of for- mulaeαandβ are equivalent, notedα≡ β, when the con- junction of formulae ofαis equivalent to the conjunction of formulae ofβ.

Two n-propositional structures Σ = hα1, . . . , αni and Σ⁰ = hα⁰₁, . . . , α⁰_niare equivalent, notedΣ ≡ Σ⁰ iff∀i ∈ 1, . . . , n, we haveαi≡α⁰_i.

Definition 2 (propositional operator) Apropositional oper- atorΩis a mapping associating anm-propositional structure with ann-propositional structure.

Many propositional queries and transformations can be viewed as propositional operators; here are a few examples:

Example 1

• DED(deduction): h{α₁, . . . , α_n},{β}i 7→ h{>}iifβ is a logical consequence of {α1, . . . , αn}, and h{⊥}i otherwise;

• ◦ (belief revision): h{α1, . . . , αn},{β}i 7→ h{β1, . . . , β_m}i where {β1, . . . , β_m} is the belief base resulting from revising{α1, . . . , αn}byβusing the belief revision operator◦;

• ∆ (belief merging) : h{α₁¹, . . . , α¹_n(1)}, . . . , {α^p₁, . . . , α^p_n(p)},{µ}i 7→ h{β1, . . . , βm}i where {β1, . . . , β_m}is the belief base resulting from merging the profile h{α¹₁, . . . , α¹_n(1)}, . . . ,{α^p₁, . . . , α^p_n(p)}iusing the belief merging operator∆whenµis the integrity constraint.

3 On Language Independence

The key notion for defining notions of language independence is that of translation; letXandY be two finite subsets ofPS:

Definition 3 (translation) A (symbol) translation σ is a mapping fromX to PROPY, which is extended to a mor- phism (also notedσ) from propositional structures overXto propositional structures overY, defined inductively by (for anyn):

• for every connective c of arity k, σ(c(α₁, . . . , α_k)) = c(σ(α1), . . . , σ(αk)),

• σ({α1, . . . , αn}) ={σ(α1), . . . , σ(αn)},

• σ(hα1, . . . , αni) =hσ(α1), . . . , σ(αn)i.

There is no need to assume any connection betweenXand Y, i.e., we may have X ∩Y = ∅, but, conversely, this is not forbidden (e.g., we may haveX = Y.) For instance, if σ: {x, y} → P ROP_{y,z}such that σ(x) = y andσ(y) =

¬y∨z,¹we haveσ(x∧ ¬y) =y∧ ¬(¬y∨z)≡y∧ ¬z.

A fundamental result in propositional logic when dealing with such symbol translations is the well-known substitution theorem:

Proposition 1 (substitution theorem) Letα,β be formulae fromPROP_X. Ifα≡βthen for every symbol translationσ fromXtoPROPY, we haveσ(α)≡σ(β).

The following properties are direct consequences of this theorem:

Corollary 1

1. Let {α1, . . . , αn} be a finite set of formulae from PROP_X, and letβ be a formula from PROP_X. We have {α1, . . . , αn} |= β if and only if for every symbol translation σ from X to PROPY, we have σ({α1, . . . , αn})|=σ(β).

1We also noteσ:x7→y;y7→ ¬y∨z.

2. |=αif and only if for every symbol translationσfrom X toPROPY, we have|= σ(α). Similarly,|= ¬αif and only if for every symbol translation σ fromX to PROPY, we have|=¬σ(α).

Let us illustrate point 1. of Corollary 1 by considering the example provided in the introduction. We have p∧(p ⇔ t) |= t. Let σ : p 7→ (r⊕s). Thenσ(p∧(p ⇔ t)) = (r⊕s)∧((r⊕s)⇔t)impliesσ(t) =t.

Obviously enough, in the general case, there is no direct logical connections between a formulaαand the associated translated formulaσ(α). They can be logically independent, likeα=pandσ(α) =qwhenσ :p7→qis considered. It can also be the case that one of them implies the other one (considerα = p, σ1 : p 7→ p∧qandσ2 : p 7→ p∨q) or that the formulae are jointly inconsistent (considerα=p andσ : p 7→ ¬p.) Actually, the only direct logical connec- tions betweenαandσ(α)are obtained in the specific caseα is valid or αis contradictory (and are given by point 2. of Corollary 1.) See also the forthcoming Proposition 3.

Nevertheless, some indirect logical connections betweenα andσ(α)exist, as stated by the following proposition:

Proposition 2 Letαbe a formula fromPROP_X. Letσbe a symbol translation fromXtoPROPY. We haveV

x∈X(x⇔ σ(x))|=α⇔σ(α).

This proposition shows that α and σ(α) are equivalent modulo the theory where each symbol inX is equivalent to its image byσ.

3.2 Language independence based on translations We are now ready to define language independence as robust- ness w.r.t. symbol translations satisfying some properties:

Definition 4 (language independence) LetP be a property on translations. A propositional operatorΩassociating an m-propositional structure with ann-propositional structure isP-language independentif and only if for every translation σsatisfyingP, for everyn-propositional structureΣ, for ev- erym-propositional structure Σ⁰ such thatΩ(Σ) ≡ Σ⁰, we haveΩ(σ(Σ))≡σ(Σ⁰).

P characterizes what should be preserved (or dually what can be lost) when a symbol translation is applied. Indeed, replacing in a uniform way propositional symbols by formu- lae may lead to question a number of properties which hold for propositional symbols but can be lost when formulae are considered. For instance, unlike formulae, propositional sym- bols are neither inconsistent nor valid, conjunction of pos- sibly negated but distinct propositional symbols are always consistent, propositional symbols are enough to generate a full propositional language over them whenever a function- ally complete set of connectives is considered.

Formally, we focus on the following properties:

Definition 5 (properties on symbol translations) A symbol translationσfromX ={x1, . . . , xn}toPROPY satisfies:

• UNI (universality);

• SIN (symbol insensitivity) if and only ifσis a bijection fromXtoY;

• TPR(triviality prevention) if and only if∀x∈X,σ(x) is consistent but not valid;

• AIP (atom independence preservation) if and only if

∀s₁, . . . , s_n∈ {0,1},V

xi∈Xσ(x_i)^siis consistent;

• FCP (functional completeness preservation) if and only if {¬,∧} is functionally complete w.r.t.

S

x∈XVar(σ(x))given{σ(x)|x∈X};

• REV (reversibility) if and only if there exists a symbol translationθsuch that∀x∈X,θ(σ(x))≡x.

UNI (universality) is when no constraints at all are im- posed on the admissible translations. UNI-language inde- pendence is hard to be satisfied since it leads to consider as admissible translations which do not preserve anything from the input propositional structure, except trivialities (tautolo- gies and contradictions) which are always kept. Indeed, we have the following result:

Proposition 3 Letαbe a formula ofPROP_X andβ a for- mula ofPROPY. Ifαis neither valid nor inconsistent, then there exists a symbol substitutionσsuch thatσ(α)≡β.

This motivates the need to restrict the set of admissible translations.

SIN-language independence asks the choice of the sym- bols names to be non-significant. This independence property is highly expected. However, as we will see in the following, it is not always guaranteed for revision/merging operators.

The rationale for TPR is to set aside translations which leads to replace a symbol, which is in essence neither valid nor inconsistent, by a formula which would be valid or in- consistent.

The rationale for AIP-language independence is as fol- lows: at start (i.e., in the languagePROP_X), all the sym- bols of X are logically independent, which means that

∀s₁, . . . , s_n∈ {0,1},V

xi∈Xx^s_iⁱis consistent; if another rep- resentation choice is made, such an independence should be preserved. Thus, for instance,x7→p∨q;y 7→ ¬p∨qdoes not satisfyAIP since¬(p∨q)∧ ¬(¬p∨q)is inconsistent;

contrastingly,x7→p⇔q;y7→psatisfiesAIP.

FCP-language independence asks for the preservation of functional completeness. In the languagePROPX consid- ered at start taking any fully expressive set of connectives (like{¬,∧}) proves enough to represent every Boolean func- tion overX. In the target languagePROPY, it is expected that any functionally complete set of connectives proves enough to represent every Boolean function overY given that the set of “atoms” is now{σ(x)|x∈ X}. As an example, consider againx7→p∨q;y7→ ¬p∨q; this symbol translation does not satisfyFCP sincepcannot be defined using{¬,∧}

when the set of “atoms” is{p∨q,¬p∨q}; on the other hand, x7→p⇔q;y 7→ psatisfiesFCP: bothpandqcan be de- fined using{¬,∧}when the set of atoms is{p⇔q, p}; this is obvious forp, and forq, we haveq≡(p⇔q)⇔p.

Finally, the idea underlyingREV-language independence is the one of reversibility. The intuition is that nothing im- portant is lost in a symbol translation when the translation can be reversed. For instance, x 7→ p∨q;y 7→ ¬p∨q does not satisfyREV since{p∨q ≡ x,¬p∨q ≡ y}with

variablesp andq has no solution over PROP_{x,y}. Con- trastingly, σ : x 7→ p ⇔ q;y 7→ p satisfies REV since θ : p 7→ y, q 7→ y ⇔ xis such that θ(σ(x)) ≡ x and θ(σ(y))≡y.

3.3 Connections between notions of language independence

Clearly enough, none of the properties above is trivial in the sense that it would be satisfied by every (or by no) symbol translation when the choice ofY is free. Thus, the identity translationσ :X → PROPX such thatσ: x7→xsatisfies all the properties above, whileσ : {x, y} → PROP_{p,q}

such that σ : x 7→ ⊥;y 7→ p∨q satisfies none of them (exceptUNI of course.)

FCP appears as logically independent of all the proper- ties, except SIN (which implies FCP, and UNI which is obviously implied byFCP):

• SIN impliesFCP since any set of connectives which is functionally complete w.r.t. X givenX is functionally complete w.r.t. any set of variablesY givenY;

• x 7→ ⊥ satisfies FCP (since S

x∈XVar(σ(x)) is empty) but does not satisfyTPR;

• x7→x∨ysatisfiesTPRandREV but does not satisfy FCP.

While based on quite different intuitions, it turns out that REV andAIPare the same property:

Proposition 4 REV andAIPare equivalent.

The remaining properties are not logically independent, but connected as follows:

• SIN implies REV: whenσ is a bijection from X to Y, θ = σ⁻¹ from Y toX such that for any y ∈ Y, θ(y) = xiff σ(x) = y is such that for all x ∈ X, θ(σ(x))≡x. The implication is strict: letX ={x, y}, Y ={p, q},σ : x 7→p;y 7→ p ⇔q. Clearly,σdoes not satisfySIN. However, it satisfiesREV:θsuch that θ : p 7→ x;q 7→ x ⇔ y satisfies θ(σ(x)) ≡ xand θ(σ(y))≡y.

• AIP impliesTPR: it is obvious that if there is an xi

such thatσ(x_i)is valid or inconsistent, then there is also aV

x_i∈Xσ(xi)^sithat is inconsistent. The implication is strict: letX={x, y},Y ={p},σ:x7→p;y7→ ¬p.σ satisfiesTPRbut does not satisfyAIP.

• TPRimpliesUNI sinceUNI is always satisfied. The implication is strict: letX ={x},Y ={},σ:x7→ ⊥.

σsatisfiesUNI but does not satisfyTPR.

The logical dependencies between properties of language independence are given by the implication graph at Figure 1.

Finally, it is easy to check that language inde- pendence (whatever P among the choices we consid- ered) is logically independent from syntax independence, where a propositional operator Ω which associates a m-propositional structure with a given n-propositional structure is said to be syntax-independent iff whenever hα₁, . . . , α_ni ≡ hα⁰₁, . . . , α⁰_ni, we also haveΩ(hα₁, . . . , α_ni)

≡Ω(hα⁰₁, . . . , α⁰_ni).

4 The Complexity of Recognizing Translations

In this section, we consider the problem of determining whether a given symbol translation is admissible, where ad- missible means that it satisfies one of the properties consid- ered in the previous section. Such an issue has to be addressed each time a representation change is expected, given a propo- sitional operator which is known asP-language independent.

Indeed, a symbol translation is acceptable in this case only if it satisfiesP.

First, we show that FCP amounts to a definability issue (see [Lang and Marquis, 2008] for details):

Proposition 5 σ: {x1, . . . , xn} →PROPY satisfiesFCP if and only ifVn

i=1(zi⇔σ(xi))definesS

x∈XVar(σ(x))in terms of{z1, . . . , zn}, where{z1, . . . , zn} ∩Y =∅.

We have also derived the following results (symbol trans- lations σ : X → P ROP_Y are supposed to be represented extensionally as{(x, σ(x))|x∈X}):

Proposition 6

1. Determining whether a given symbol translation σ : X →P ROPY satisfiesSIN is inP.

2. Determining whether a given symbol translation σ : X →P ROP_Y satisfiesTRPisNP-complete.

3. Determining whether a given symbol translation σ : X →P ROP_Y satisfiesFCPiscoNP-complete.

4. Determining whether a given symbol translation σ : X → P ROPY satisfiesREV (or, equivalently,AIP) isΠ^p₂-complete.

Interestingly, the problem of determining whether a given symbol translationσ:X →P ROPY satisfiesREV is a spe- cific case of the following problem of propositional matching (given2nformulaeα₁,β₁,. . .,α_n,β_n, determining whether there exists a substitution θ from X = Sn

i=1Var(αi) to PROPY withY =Sn

i=1Var(βi)such that fori∈1, . . . , n, θ(α_i)≡β_i.) Hence, Point 4. of Proposition 6 shows that the problem of propositional matching is at least as hard as prob- lem of Boolean unification with constants [Baader, 1998], which was an open problem issue, as far as we know.

5 Language Independence for Belief Merging and Belief Revision

As a case study, we have investigated how some belief re- vision/merging operators from the literature are language- independent. Belief merging operators aim at defining a be- lief base (the merged base) which represents the beliefs of a

SIN FCP

REV AIP

TPR UNI

Figure 1: Implication graph of properties on symbol transla- tions.

group of agents given their individual belief bases, and some integrity constraints. Formally, a baseK denotes the set of beliefs of an agent, it is a finite set of propositional formulae, interpreted conjunctively. A profileE = hK1, . . . , Kni is a vector of consistent bases representing the beliefs from the group ofnagents involved in the merging process. A merging operator∆is a mapping associating a formulaµ(represent- ing the integrity constraints) and a profileEwith a new base

∆µ(E).

KP rationality postulates [Konieczny and Pino P´erez, 2002] are expected properties for belief merging operators.

For space reasons, we only recall two of them:

(IC1) Ifµis consistent, then∆_µ(E)is consistent;

(IC2) IfV{Ki|Ki∈E} ∧µis consistent, then∆_µ(E)≡V

{Ki|K_i∈E} ∧µ.

Distance-based merging operators are characterized by a distance² between worlds and an aggregation function f (a mapping associating with a tuple of non-negative real num- bers a non-negative real number) [Koniecznyet al., 2004]:

Definition 6 (Distance-based merging operator) Let d be a distance between worlds andfbe an aggregation function.

The merging operator∆^d,fis defined for every profileEand every formula µ by mod(∆^d,f_µ (E)) = min(mod(µ),≤_E) where the total preorder ≤E over worlds induced by E is defined by:

• ω≤E ω⁰if and only ifd(ω, E)≤d(ω⁰, E),

• d(ω, E) =f_K∈E(d(ω, K)),

• d(ω, K) =min_ω⁰_|=Kd(ω, ω⁰).

Usual distances aredD, the drastic distance (dD(ω, ω⁰) = 0ifω=ω⁰and1otherwise), anddH the Hamming distance (d_D(ω, ω⁰) =nifωandω⁰differ onnvariables.)

Belief revision operators can be viewed as belief merging operators restricted to singleton profiles, so that AGM/KM postulates [Alchourr´onet al., 1985; Katsuno and Mendelzon, 1992] for belief revision are direct counterparts of KP pos- tulates for singleton profiles; for instance, the KM postulate (R2)(resp. (R3)) for belief revision corresponds to the KP postulate(IC2)(resp.(IC1).)

As Proposition 3 suggests it,UNI-language independence is hardly achieved by operators which have to deal with jointly inconsistent (but typically individually consistent) propositional information, while avoiding trivialization. Ac- tually, focusing on translations satisfying TPR or FCP is not enough as well, since rational belief revision/merging op- erators (in the sense of AGM/KM postulates for belief revi- sion and KP postulates for belief merging) are neitherTPR- language independent, norFCP-language independent; more precisely:

Proposition 7 No belief revision operator◦satisfying(R2) and(R3)and no belief merging operator∆satisfying(IC1) and(IC2)isTPR-language independent orFCP-language independent.

2Actually, a pseudo-distance is enough, i.e., triangular inequality is not mandatory.

Hence, one needs to consider less restricted forms of lan- guage independence, especiallyREV. It turns out that exist- ing belief revision/merging operators are not equallyREV- language independent. Unsurprisingly, the distance choice is of tremendous significance in this respect:

Proposition 8 Letfbe any aggregation function.

• Every distance-based belief merging operator ∆^dD,f based on the drastic distanced_DisREV-language in- dependent.

• No distance-based belief merging operator∆^dH,fbased on the Hamming distance d_H is REV-language inde- pendent.

The situation is worse for SIN-language independence since it is not always guaranteed by rational operators:

Proposition 9 There exist belief revision (resp. belief merg- ing) operators which satisfy all AGM/KM postulates (resp.

all KP postulates) but are notSIN-language independent.

Indeed, every AGM/KM operator◦can be characterized in terms of a faithful assignment associating with every formula αa total preorder≤_αover interpretations, so that the models ofα◦βare exactly the models ofβwhich are minimal w.r.t.

≤α[Katsuno and Mendelzon, 1992]. The point is that noth- ing ensures that the faithful assignment associates withσ(α) a total ordering corresponding to≤_σ(α)even whenσis a bi- jective symbol translation. For instance, letX =Y ={a, b}.

Consider a belief revision operator associated with a faithful assignment such that:

10<1001<1011<1000, 01<₀₁11<₀₁10<₀₁00.

Letσ:a7→b;b7→a. Letα=a∧ ¬bandβ=b. We have α◦β ≡ ¬a∧b. Now,σ(α)≡ ¬a∧bandσ(β)≡a. We have σ(α)◦σ(β)≡a∧b, which is not equivalent toσ(α◦β).

This calls for two further axioms expressing such a form of language independence ((SIN-R)for belief revision and (SIN-M)for belief merging), stating respectively that for ev- ery bijectionσfromXtoY:

(SIN-R) σ(α◦β)≡σ(α)◦σ(β);

(SIN-M) σ(∆_µ(E))≡∆_σ(µ)(σ(E)).

Those axioms complement the ones related to syntax in- dependence ((R4) for belief revision, and (IC3) for belief merging) and seem highly desirable. Actually, the distance- based belief revision and belief merging operators, based on

“standard distances” (like the drastic distance and the Ham- ming one), satisfy those axioms. More generally, whenX = {x1, . . . , xn}containsnatoms, let a distancedover interpre- tations overXbe decomposable when there exists a mapping fd : Rⁿ →Rsymmetric in each argument and a symmetric mappinggd : {0,1} × {0,1} → Rsuch thatd(ω1, ω2) = f_d(g_d(ω₁(x₁), ω₂(x₁)), . . . , g_d(ω₁(x_n), ω₂(x_n)). We have:

Proposition 10 Every belief revision/merging operator based on a decomposable distance is SIN-language independent.

For the drastic distance dD, we have fd_D = maxand g_dD(x, y) = 0ifx = y,= 1otherwise. For the Hamming distancedH, we havefd_H = Σandgd_H =gd_D.

6 Other Related Work

Independence is well-known as a key notion in many domains within artificial intelligence, especially graphical models for representing beliefs (e.g., Bayes nets) or preferences (e.g., CP-nets or GAI-nets.) In propositional logic, since Belnap’s work about relevance logic in the sixties, a number of con- cepts of independence (also referred to as irrelevance, sep- arability, etc.) has been pointed out in the literature (see [Lang et al., 2002; 2003] for a survey.) Various forms of syntax-independence for belief bases have also been investi- gated so far [Dalal, 1988; Nebel, 1991; Benferhatet al., 1997;

Hansson, 2002]. Qualitative independence, i.e., how the fact of learning a new piece of evidence individually affects pre- vious beliefs, has been studied as well for a while [Dubois et al., 1997]. It turns out that none of these notions of in- dependence in propositional logic coincides with a form of language independence (in all the works cited above, inde- pendence is defined as a relation over a language over afixed set of propositional symbols.)

More recently, Makinson [Makinson, 2009] studied a no- tion of relevance (canonical relevance) which is expected to be respected in belief change (roughly, contracting a belief base/setKwith some piece of informationαshould preserve every consequenceβofKwhenαis irrelevant toβ.) While canonical relevance is syntax-independent in the usual sense, Makinson shows that it is not language-independent; revis- iting Makinson’s counter-example in the light of our work, we can state more precisely that canonical relevance isSIN- language independent, but is neitherREV-language indepen- dent norFCP-language independent.

7 Conclusion

This paper is centered on the concept of language indepen- dence in propositional logic. The main contributions are mainly as follows:

• We have defined language independence as robustness w.r.t. symbol translations.

• We have motivated the need to focus on symbol transla- tions of different types, i.e., satisfying some additional properties, which leads to several notions of language independence. We have shown how they are logically connected.

• We have identified the complexity of recognizing sym- bol translations satisfying properties of interest.

• As a case study, we have investigated the robustness of belief revision and belief merging operators w.r.t. trans- lations of different types. Only limited forms of lan- guage independence are satisfied in the general case for belief change operators. Especially, evenSIN-language independence is not guaranteed for the AGM/KM belief revision operators.

This work paves the way for three main directions for fur- ther research. A first one concerns belief change; pointing out other operators satisfying SIN-language independence would be useful. A second direction consists in investigat- ing the ”degree” of language independence of other proposi- tional operators from the literature (for instance, abduction,

circumscription and other forms of closed-world reasoning.) A third one consists in determining how our results can be lifted to other propositional settings where a substitution the- orem holds (for instance, this is the case for a number of multi-valued paraconsistent logics.)

References

[Alchourr´onet al., 1985] C. E. Alchourr´on, P. G¨ardenfors, and D. Makinson. On the logic of theory change: Par- tial meet contraction and revision functions. Journal of Symbolic Logic, 50(2):510–530, 1985.

[Baader, 1998] F. Baader. On the complexity of boolean uni- fication. Information Processing Letters, 67(4):215–220, 1998.

[Benferhatet al., 1997] S. Benferhat, D. Dubois, and H. Prade. H. syntactic approaches to the handling of inconsistent knowledge bases: A comparative study part 1: The flat case.Studia Logica, 58(1):17–45, 1997.

[Dalal, 1988] M. Dalal. Investigations into a theory of knowledge base revision. In Proceedings of AAAI’88, pages 475–479, 1988.

[Duboiset al., 1997] D. Dubois, L. Fari˜nas del Cerro, A. Herzig, and H. Prade. Qualitative relevance and inde- pendence: A roadmap. InProceedings of IJCAI’97, pages 62–67, 1997.

[Hansson, 2002] S.O. Hansson. The role of language in be- lief revision.Studia Logica, 70(1):5–21, 2002.

[Katsuno and Mendelzon, 1992] H. Katsuno and A. O.

Mendelzon. Propositional knowledge base revision and minimal change. Artificial Intelligence, 52(3):263–294, 1992.

[Konieczny and Pino P´erez, 2002] S. Konieczny and R. Pino P´erez. On the frontier between arbitration and majority. In Proceedings of KR’02, pages 109–118, 2002.

[Koniecznyet al., 2004] S. Konieczny, J. Lang, and P. Mar- quis. DA² merging operators. Artificial Intelligence, 157:49–79, 2004.

[Lang and Marquis, 2008] J. Lang and P. Marquis. On propositional definability. Artificial Intelligence, 172(8- 9):991–1017, 2008.

[Langet al., 2002] J. Lang, P. Liberatore, and P. Marquis.

Conditional independence in propositional logic.Artificial Intelligence, 141(1/2):79–121, 2002.

[Langet al., 2003] J. Lang, P. Liberatore, and P. Marquis.

Propositional independence: Formula-variable indepen- dence and forgetting.Journal of Artificial Intelligence Re- search, 18:391–443, 2003.

[Makinson, 2009] D. Makinson. Propositional relevance through letter-sharing. Journal of Applied Logic, 7(4):377–387, 2009.

[Nebel, 1991] B. Nebel. Belief revision and default reason- ing: Syntax-based approaches. InProceedings of KR’91, pages 417–428, 1991.

Appendix: proofs

Proposition 2 Proof:V

x∈X(x⇔σ(x))is equivalent toV

x∈X((x∧σ(x))∨

(¬x∧ ¬σ(x)). Distributing V

over ∨, given the substitu- tion theorem, we get thatV

x∈X(x⇔σ(x))is equivalent to W

ω∈2^PSω∧σ(ω)(where slightly abusing word, each inter- pretation is viewed as an associated canonical term). Now, given an interpretationω, there are two cases:

• ω|=α. Then from point 1. of Corollary 1, we also have σ(ω)|=σ(α). Hence,ω∧σ(ω) |=α∧σ(α)|=α⇔ σ(α).

• ω |= ¬α. Then from point 1. of Corollary 1, we also have σ(ω) |= ¬σ(α). Hence, ω ∧ σ(ω) |= ¬α ∧

¬σ(α)|=α⇔σ(α).

Whatever the case,ω∧σ(ω)|=α⇔σ(α). Hence, we have W

ω∈2^PSω∧σ(ω)|=α⇔σ(α). This concludes the proof.

Proposition 3

Proof: We first introduce two notations. For every inter- pretation ω : X → {0,1}, ω¯ denotes the interpretation

¯

ω :X → {0,1}such that∀x∈X,ω(x) = 1¯ iffω(x) = 0, and for everyx⁰ ∈X,ω^¬x0 denotes the interpretationω^¬x0 : X → {0,1}such that∀x∈X,ω^¬x0(x) =¬ω(x)ifx=x⁰, ω^¬x0(x) =ω(x)otherwise.

LetX={x1, . . . , x_n}and letαbe a formula ofPROP_X which is neither valid nor inconsistent. We fall into two cases:

• Assume that there exists a modelω_∗ofαsuch that the interpretationω¯_∗is a counter-model ofα. Let us define σ : X → PROP_Y such that ∀x ∈ X,σ(x) = β if ω_∗(x) = 1andσ(x) =¬βotherwise. By construction, for every modelωofα, we haveσ(ω)≡β whenω = ω∗andσ(ω)≡ ⊥otherwise.

• Assume now that for every model ω of α, ω¯ is also a model ofα. Let us remark that sinceαis neither valid nor inconsistent, there exists a model ω_∗ of α and a variable x∗ ∈ PROPX such that ω_∗^¬x∗ is a counter- model ofα. Let us define σ : X → PROPY such that σ(x∗) = > if ω∗(x∗) = 1, σ(x∗) = ⊥ other- wise, and ∀x ∈ X such that x 6= x_∗, σ(x) = β if ω_∗(x) = 1,σ(x) =¬βotherwise. By construction, we haveσ(ω_∗) ≡β,σ(¯ω^¬x_∗ ^∗) ≡ ¬β, and for every inter- pretationωsuch thatω6=ω_∗andω6= ¯ω_∗^¬x∗,σ(ω)≡ ⊥.

Yet by hypothesis,ω¯^¬x_∗ ^∗ is a counter-model ofαsince ω_∗^¬x∗is also a counter-model ofα. Hence, by construc- tion for every modelω ofα, we haveσ(ω) ≡β when ω=ω_∗andσ(ω)≡ ⊥otherwise.

In both cases, there exists a symbol substitutionσand a model ω_∗ ofαsuch that for every modelωofα,σ(ω)≡ β when ω = ω∗ andσ(ω) ≡ ⊥otherwise. Given thatαis equiva- lent to the disjunction of the canonical terms associated to its models, the substitution theorem concludes the proof.

Proposition 4

Proof: In the following, we assume thatσ: X →PROPY

is such thatX ∩Y = ∅. This can be done without loss of generality since a symbol translationσsatisfiesREV iff the symbol translationσ⁰ : X → PROP_Y⁰ whereY⁰ = {y⁰ | y ∈ Y}is such that Y⁰ ∩X = ∅, satisfiesREV as well.

By construction,σ⁰ is equal to the restriction overX of the symbol translationτ◦σwhereτ : Y →Y⁰ is the bijective symbol translation such that∀y∈Y,τ(y) =y⁰. Ifσ⁰is such that there exists a symbol translationθ⁰ fromY⁰toPROPX

such that∀x ∈ X,θ⁰(σ⁰(x)) ≡ x, then we have∀x ∈ X, θ⁰(τ(σ(x)) ≡ x; accordingly, the symbol translation θ = θ⁰ ◦τ is such that∀x ∈ X, θ(σ(x)) ≡ x. The other way around, ifσ is such that there exists a symbol translationθ fromY toPROPX such that∀x ∈ X,θ(σ(x)) ≡ x, then we also have∀x∈ X,θ(τ⁻¹(τ(σ(x)) ≡x; this shows that the symbol translationθ⁰ = θ◦τ⁻¹ is such that∀x ∈ X, θ⁰(σ⁰(x))≡x.

On this ground, σ satisfies REV iff there exists a sym- bol translation θ from Y to PROPX such that ∀xi ∈ X = {x1, . . . , xn},θ(σ(xi)) ≡ xi iff there exists a sym- bol translationθ fromY to PROPX such that∀xi ∈ X, θ(σ(xi) ⇔ xi) is valid iff there exists a symbol transla- tion θ from Y to PROP_X such that θ(V

x_i∈X(σ(x_i) ⇔ xi))is valid. This holds iff the quantified Boolean formula

∃Y.V

x_i∈X(σ(xi) ⇔ xi)is valid. Now, V

x_i∈X(σ(xi) ⇔ x_i) is equivalent to W

s1,...,sn∈{0,1}

V

xi∈Xσ(x_i)^si ∧ x^s_iⁱ. Hence, ∃Y.V

xi∈X(σ(xi) ⇔ xi) is equivalent to

∃Y.W

s₁,...,s_n∈{0,1}

V

x_i∈Xσ(xi)^si ∧ x^s_iⁱ, which in turn is equivalent to W

s₁,...,s_n∈{0,1}∃Y.V

x_i∈Xσ(xi)^si ∧ x^s_iⁱ.

∃Y.V

xi∈Xσ(x_i)^si ∧ x^s_iⁱ is equivalent to V

xi∈Xx^s_iⁱ ∧

∃Y.(V

xi∈Xσ(xi)^si), which can be simplified asV

xi∈Xx^s_iⁱ if V

x_i∈Xσ(xi)^si is consistent and as ⊥ otherwise. Let us simplify W

s₁,...,s_n∈{0,1}∃Y.V

x_i∈Xσ(x_i)^si ∧x^s_iⁱ along this way: if one of theV

xi∈Xσ(x_i)^si is inconsistent, then the corresponding canonical termV

x_i∈Xx^s_iⁱ will be miss- ing in the resulting disjunction, which cannot be valid;

in the remaining case, this disjunction is equivalent to W

s1,...,sn∈{0,1}

V

xi∈Xx^s_iⁱ, hence to>.

Proposition 5

Proof: {¬,∧} is functionally complete w.r.t.

S

x∈XVar(σ(x)) given {σ(x) | x ∈ X} iff for every y ∈ S

x∈XVar(σ(x)), there exists a formula αy gen- erated from {¬,∧} and {σ(x) | x ∈ X} as the set of

“atoms” such that α_y ≡ y. Under the assumption that Vn

i=1(zi ⇔ σ(xi)) holds, this is equivalent to state that for everyy ∈ S

x∈XVar(σ(x))there exists a formulaαy

generated from{¬,∧}and{z1, . . . , zn}as the set of atoms such thatαy ≡y. Eachαycan be viewed as a definition ofy in terms of{z1, . . . , zn}in the formulaVn

i=1(zi ⇔ σ(xi)).

Proposition 6

Proof:LetX ={x₁, . . . , x_n}.

• SIN. Obvious.

• TRP. For eachx∈X,σ(x)is consistent and not valid

iff one can find a model of it and a counter-model of it. In order to determine whetherσsatisfiesTRPit is enough to guess for eachx∈X an interpretation overXwhich satisfiesσ(x)and an interpretation overX which satis- fies¬σ(x); this can be easily done in nondeterministic polynomial time. As to hardness, letαbe any proposi- tional formula.αis consistent iff the symbol translation σ:{x} →V ar(α)∪ {new}withnew6∈V ar(α)such thatσ(x) =α∧newsatisfiesTRP.

• FCP. Proposition 5 gives a polynomial reduction of this problem to the definability one. Since the latter is in coNP [Lang and Marquis, 2008] and coNP is closed under polynomial reduction, the membership of the former tocoNPfollows. We provecoNP-hardness by exhibiting a polynomial reduction from the unsat- isfiability problem. Consider a propositional formula α from PROPX; let us associate with it in polyno- mial time the symbol translationσfromPROP^X_Y where X = Var(α)∪ {p, q} (with Var(α)∩ {p, q} = ∅), Y = X, such that ∀x ∈ Var(α), σ(x) = x, and σ(p) = (p∧ α)∨ q, and σ(q) = (q ∧α)∨ p. If αis inconsistent, then everyy ∈ Y is definable from {σ(x) | x ∈ X}, in the sense that there exists a for- mulaϕy ∈ PROP_{{σ(x)|x∈X}}such thaty ≡σ(ϕy). If αis consistent, then neitherpnorqare definable from {σ(x)|x∈X}. Thus,αis inconsistent if and only ifσ satisfiesFCP.

• REV. We take advantage of the equivalence given by Proposition 4. For membership toΠ^p₂, one consid- ers the complementary problem (determine whetherσ does not satisfyAIP) and shows that it belongs toΣ^p₂. Consider the following algorithm: guesss₁, . . . , s_n ∈ {0,1} then check using one call to an NP-oracle that V

x_i∈Xσ(x_i)^si is inconsistent. Clearly enough, this non-deterministic algorithm with oracleNPsolves the complementary problem, showing that it belongs toΣ^p₂. As to hardness, consider a quantified Boolean formula (QBF) of the form∀A.(∃B.α)whereA={a1, . . . , an} andB = {b1, . . . , b_m}are two disjoint sets of propo- sitional atoms and Var(α) = A∪B. We associate to this QBF in polynomial time the substitution σ : {x0, x1, . . . , xn} →P ROPY withY =A∪B∪{new}

and new 6∈ A∪ B, defined by σ(x0) = α∧new and for each i ∈ 1, . . . , n, σ(xi) = ai. σ satisfies REV (or equivalentlyAIP) iff ∀s0, . . . , sn ∈ {0,1}, V

x_i∈Xσ(x_i)^si is consistent iff∀s1 ∈ {0,1} ∀A(α∧ new)is consistent iff∀A.(¬α∨¬new)is consistent and

∀A(α∧new)is consistent. Clearly enough, the QBF

∀A.(¬α∨ ¬new)is consistent (every interpretationω such that ω(new) = 0is a model of it). Finally, the QBF∀A.(α∧new)is consistent iff the QBF∀A.α is consistent iff the QBF∀A.(∃B.α)is valid. The fact that the latter problem isΠ^p₂-complete completes the proof.

Proposition 7

Proof: Consider a belief revision operator◦ satisfying the

rationality postulates(R2)and(R3) [Katsuno and Mendel- zon, 1992] and a belief revision operator ∆ satisfying the rationality postulate(IC1) and(IC2). Let X = {x1, x₂}.

(R2)implies thatx1◦x2 ≡x1∧x2 and(IC2)implies that

∆({x₁})_x2 ≡x₁∧x₂. Consider now the translationσsuch thatσ(x1) =x1andσ(x2) =¬x1; since each ofx1and¬x1

is consistent but not valid,σsatisfiesTPR. Furthermore, it satisfiesFCP. If◦(resp.∆) would satisfyTPR-language in- dependence orFCP-language independence, then(R3)(resp.

(IC1)) would imply thatσ(x1)◦σ(x2) = x1◦ ¬x1 (resp.

σ(∆({x1})x₂) = x1◦ ¬x1) is consistent, which is not the case.

Proposition 8 Proof:

• Let E = hK1, . . . , Kpi be a profile of belief bases containing formulae from PROP_X and let µ be a formula from PROPX. By construction, the models of ∆^d_µ^D,f(E) are the models ω of µ s.t.

f(dD(ω, K1), . . . , dD(ω, Kp))is minimal. Letσbe a symbol translation which satisfiesREV. Equivalently, it satisfies AIP. Hence, it is such that, for every inter- pretationω overX (viewed as an associated canonical term), we haveσ(ω)consistent. Letωbe any interpre- tation overX. From Point 1. of Corollary 1, ifω |=µ (resp. ω |= K_i,ω |= ¬K_i), thenσ(ω) |= σ(µ)(resp.

σ(ω)|=σ(Ki),σ(ω)|=¬σ(Ki)). Letω⁰be any model ofσ(ω)(ω⁰ exists sinceσ(ω)is consistent). By transi- tivity of |=, we haveω⁰ |= σ(µ)(resp. ω⁰ |= σ(Ki), σ(ω) |= ¬σ(Ki)). Furthermore, assume that the set of models ofµis{ω1, . . . , ω_n}(where eachω_i is also viewed as an associated canonical term). From the sub- stitution theorem for propositional logic,σ(µ)is equiva- lent toWn

i=1σ(ωi). Givenωi, ωj ∈ {ω1, . . . , ωn}, ifi6=

jthenω_i∧ω_j |=⊥. Hence forω_i, ω_j ∈ {ω₁, . . . , ω_n}, if i 6= j thenσ(ωi)∧σ(ωj) |= ⊥. Therefore, when- everω⁰ |=σ(µ), there exists a uniqueω |=µsuch that ω |= σ(ω). Thus, for every interpretationω⁰ over Y such thatω⁰ |=σ(µ), there exists a unique modelω of µ s.t. ω⁰ |= σ(ω), and for every ω⁰⁰ overY such that ω⁰⁰|=σ(ω)(especially forω⁰⁰=ω⁰) for everyKiofE, we haveω |= K_i iffω⁰⁰ |= σ(K_i), which implies that dD(ω, Ki) =dD(ω⁰⁰, σ(Ki)). As a direct consequence, we get thatσ(∆^d_µ^D,f(E))≡∆^d_σ(µ)^D,f(σ(E)).

• Consider a profile h{α}i consisting of a single belief base with α = p ∧ q. Let µ = ¬p. We have

∆^d_µ^H,f(h{α}i) ≡ {¬p∧q} whatever the aggregation function f. Consider now the symbol translation σ : {p, q} → {p, r, s}such thatσ(p) = p∧sandσ(q) =

¬p∨r. We have σ(p∧q) ≡ p∧r∧s consistent, σ(¬p∧q) ≡ ¬p∨(r∧ ¬s)consistent,σ(p∧ ¬q) ≡ p∧ ¬r∧sconsistent, andσ(¬p∧ ¬q)≡p∧ ¬r∧ ¬s consistent. Accordingly, σsatisfiesAIP, henceREV. We also haveσ(α)≡p∧r∧s,σ(µ)≡ ¬p∨ ¬s. Hence,

∆^d_σ(µ)^H,f(h{σ(α)}i) ≡ {r ∧(p⊕ s)}. Contrastingly, σ(∆^d_µ^H,f(h{α}i)) = σ({¬p∧q}) ≡ {p∨(r∧ ¬s)}.

Sincep∨(r∧ ¬s)6≡r∧(p⊕s), the conclusion follows.

Proposition 9

Proof: LetX = {a, b}. Consider a belief revision operator associated to a faithful assignment such that:

10<1001<1011<1000, 01<0111<0110<0100.

Letσ:a7→b;b7→aa bijective substitution overX. Let α = a∧ ¬bandβ = b. We have α◦β ≡ ¬a∧b. Now, σ(α)≡ ¬a∧bandσ(β)≡a. We haveσ(α)◦σ(β)≡a∧b, which is not equivalent toσ(α◦β).

The proof is similar for a belief merging operator, con- sidering a profile with a unique base α andβ as integrity constraints. Especially, what remains to be done is to show that there exists a syncretic assignment which is ”compati- ble” with the faithful assignment above. A syncretic assign- ment is a mapping which associates with everyprofilea com- plete preorder over the interpretations (while a faithful assign- ment associates with every base a complete preorder over the interpretations.) The conditions that a syncretic assign- ment have to satisfied are more demanding than those that faithful assignments must satisfy (see [Konieczny and Pino P´erez, 2002] for details.) Especially, it is not the case that every faithful assignment can be extended to a syncretic as- signment. Let us show that this is nevertheless the case for the assignment considered above. We exploit a representa- tion theorem for IC merging operators implying that every merging operator based on a pseudo-distance and an aggre- gation function is an IC merging operator [Konieczny and Pino P´erez, 2002]. Consider for instance any mapping from 2^PS ×2^PS to the natural numbers satisfyingd(ω, ω) = 0for every interpretationω,d(ω₁, ω₂) =d(ω₂, ω₁) = 0for every pair of interpretationsω1,ω2, and:

• d(01,11) = 2,

• d(01,10) = 3,

• d(00,01) =d(10,11) = 4

• d(00,10) = 5,

• d(00,11) = 6.

By construction,dis a pseudo-distance (in fact, it is a dis- tance, i.e., the triangular inequality is also satisfied by d.) Consider any admissible aggregation function (e.g. Σ). The corresponding merging operator∆^d,Σis an IC one. Now it is easy to check that we have:

• d(10,10) = 0 < d(10,01) = 3 < d(10,11) = 4 <

d(10,00) = 5

• d(01,01) = 0 < d(01,11) = 2 < d(01,10) = 3 <

d(01,00) = 4

Accordingly, we have ∆^d,Σ_b ({a∧ ¬b}) ≡ ¬a∧b, and

∆^d,Σ_a ({b∧ ¬a})≡a∧b. Clearly, forσ : a 7→ b; b 7→ a a bijective substitution overX,α=a∧ ¬bandβ=b, we do not haveσ(∆^d,Σ_β ({α}))equivalent to∆^d,Σ_σ(β)({σ(α)}).

Proposition 10

Proof: Let d be the decomposable distance on which the belief revision/merging operator under consideration is based. It is enough to show that for every bijection σ from X to Y and every pair of interpretations ω₁, ω₂ over X, we have d(ω1, ω2) = d(σ(ω1), σ(ω2)). Since dis decomposable, there exist a mapping f_d : Rⁿ → R which is symmetric in each argument and a symmet- ric mapping gd : {0,1} × {0,1} → R such that d(ω1, ω2) = fd(gd(ω1(x1), ω2(x1)), . . . , gd(ω1(xn), ω2(xn)). Now, we also have d(σ(ω1), σ(ω2)) = f_d(g_d(σ(ω₁)(x₁), σ(ω₂)(x₁)), . . . , g_d(σ(ω₁)(x_n), σ(ω2)(xn)) = fd(gd(ω1(σ(x1)), ω2)(σ(x1))), . . . , g_d(ω₁)(σ(x_n)), ω₂(σ(x_n))). Since σ is a bijection and fd is symmetric in each argument, this is equal to f_d(g_d(ω₁(x₁), ω₂(x₁)), . . . , g_d(ω₁(x_n), ω₂(x_n)), and this completes the proof.