Invited Paper: Monadic Logic and Automata: Recent Developments (at LICS 1998)

Authors: Wolfgang Thomas

Abstract

This tutorial surveys selected recent results on the connection between monadic second-order logic and finite automata. As a unifying idea, the role of automata as normal forms of monadic formulas is pursued. In the first part we start from an automata-theoretic interpretation of existential monadic second-order formulas and in this framework explain the monadic quantifier alternation hierarchy over finite graphs. In the second part, infinite models, in particular ?-words, are considered. We analyze the logical significance of central constructions in ?-automata theory and sketch new proofs of decidability results in monadic second-order logic

BibTeX

  @InProceedings{Thomas-MonadicLogicandAuto,
    author = 	 {Wolfgang Thomas},
    title = 	 {Monadic Logic and Automata: Recent Developments},
    booktitle =  {Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS 1998)},
    year =	 {1998},
    month =	 {June}, 
    pages =      {136--138},
    location =   {Indianapolis, IN, USA}, 
    note =       {Invited Talk},
    publisher =	 {IEEE Computer Society Press}
  }