A modal logic for non-deterministic disambiguation

A modal logic is presented for Kripke frames with states (i.e., possible worlds) given by pairs (e-,phi-) of sequences e- = e_1 ... e_n and phi- = phi_1 ... phi_n of possibly ambiguous expressions e_i and (unambiguous) formulas phi_i, where phi_i is (in a precise sense) a disambiguation of e_i relative to a context in which e_1 ... e_{i-1} occurs to the left (or past) of e_i and e_{i+1} ... e_n occurs to the right (or future) of e_i. The accessibility relations of the frame are of two kinds: transitions labeled by expressions e, with "(e-,phi-) e-> (e'-,phi'-)" iff e'- = e-e and phi'- = phi-phi; and unlabeled transitions (e-,phi-) d-> (e'-,phi'-) iff e- = e'-. Transitions of the first type, e-> describe (non-deterministic) extensions of a state (e-,phi') assuming e occurs to the right/future of e-. Transitions of the second kind allow for a re-interpretation phi'- of the first component e- of a state (e-,phi-). A multi-modal language is defined that captures bisimulation equivalence between models based on such frames. Decidability and the finite model property are, under suitable conditions, established.

Tim Fernando