I. INTRODUCTION
Syllogism is one of the significant forms of reasoning in natural language and human thinking. There are various kinds of syllogisms, such as Aristotelian syllogisms (Patzig, 1969; Long, 2023; Hui, 2023), Aristotelian modal syllogisms (Johnson, 2004; Lukasiewicz, 1957; Cheng and Xiaojun, 2023), generalized syllogisms (Murinova and Novák, 2012; Xiaojun and Baoxiang, 2021; Endrullis and Moss, 2015), and generalized modal syllogisms (Jing and Xiaojun, 2023).
Although many generalized modal syllogisms exist in natural language, there is little literature on their reducibilities. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on them. The four Aristotelian quantifiers (that is, not all, all, some and no) constitute Square{all}. And 'most' and its three negative (i.e. inner, outer and dual), fewer than half of the, at most half of the, and at least half of the, form Square{most}. The generalized modal syllogisms studied in this paper only involve the quantifiers in Square{all} and Square{most}.
II. PRELIMINARIES
In this paper, let , and be the lexical variables, which are elements in the set , and respectively, be the domain of lexical variables, the cardinality of the set , and , , and propositional variables. stands for any generalized quantifiers, and for the outer and inner negative quantifier of respectively. The generalized modal syllogisms discussed in this paper comprise the following sentences as follows: 'all are ', 'no are ', 'some are ', 'not all are ', 'most are ', 'fewer than half of the are ', 'at most half of the are ', and 'at least half of the are '. They can be denoted as: all( , ), no( , ), some( , ), not all( , ), most( , ), fewer than half of the( , ), at most half of the( , ), at least half of the( , ), and are respectively abbreviated as Proposition A, E, I, O, M, F, H and S.
A non-trivial generalized modal syllogism includes at least one and at most three non-overlapping modalities (possible modality or necessary modality ) and nontrivial generalized quantifiers, such as the quantifiers in Square-most".
Example 1:
Major premise: No grapes are necessarily blueberries.
Minor premise: Most grapes are purple fruits.
Conclusion: Not all purple fruits are possibly blueberries.
Let be the lexical variable for a blueberry in the domain, be the lexical variable for a grape in the domain, and be the lexical variable for a purple fruit in the domain. Then the syllogism in example 1 can be formalized as: , which abbreviated as .
According to generalized quantifier theory, set theory (Halmos, 1974) and possible world semantics (Chellas, 1980), the truth value definitions of sentences with quantification, relevant facts and rules used in the paper are as follows:
Definition 1 (truth value definitions):
(1.1) is true when and only when is true in all real worlds.
(1.2) is true when and only when is true in all real worlds.
(1.3) some is true when and only when is true in all real worlds.
(1.4) not all is true when and only when is true in all real worlds.
(1.5) is true when and only when is true in all real worlds.
(1.6) all is true when and only when is true in all possible worlds.
(1.7) is true when and only when is true in some possible world.
(1.8) no(w, v) is true when and only when is true in all possible worlds.
(1.9) is true when and only when is true in some possible worlds.
(1.10) some(w, v) is true when and only when is true in all possible worlds.
(1.11) some is true when and only when is true in some possible worlds.
(1.12) not all is true when and only when is true in all possible worlds.
(1.13) not all is true when and only when is true in some possible worlds.
(1.14) most(w, v) is true when and only when is true in all possible worlds.
(1.15) is true when and only when is true in some possible worlds.
Definition 2 (inner negation): .
Definition 3 (outer negation): is not that .
Fact 1 (inner negation):
- (1.1)
- (1.2) ;
- (1.3) some(w,v) not all
- (1.4) not all some ;
- (1.5) fewer than half of the most ;
- (1.6) fewer than half of the ;
- (1.7) at most half of the at least half of the ;
- (1.8) at least half of the at most half of the .
Fact 2 (outer negation):
- (2.1) ;
- (2.2) ;
- (2.3) ;
- (2.4) ;
- (2.5) ;
- (2.6) at most half of the most ;
- (2.7) fewer than half of the at least half of the ;
- (2.8) at least half of the fewer than half of the .
Fact 3 (dual):
- (3.1) ;
- (3.2) .
Fact 4 (symmetry):
- (4.1) some(w,v) some(v,w);
- (4.2) .
Fact 5 (subordination):
- (5.1) ;
- (5.2) ;
- (5.3) ;
- (5.4) ;
- (5.5) .
Rule 1 (subsequent weakening): If and , then .
Rule 2 (anti-syllogism): If , then or .
III. THE VALIDITY OF THE SYLLOGISM EM O-3 In order to discuss the reducibility of generalized modal syllogisms based on the syllogism , it is necessary to prove the validity of the syllogism .
Theorem 1 (□EM◇O-3): The generalized modal syllogism □no(v, w)∧most (v, z)→◇ not all(z, w) is valid.
Proof: According to Example 1, is the abbreviation of the syllogism . Suppose that and are true, then in virtue of Definition (1.8), is true when and only when is true in all possible worlds. Similarly, in line with Definition (1.5), is true when and only when is true in all real worlds. Real worlds are elements in the set of all possible worlds. Thus, it is easily seen that and are true in some possible worlds. Then, it is clear that is true in some possible worlds. not all is true in terms of Definition (1.13). The above proves that the syllogism not all is valid.
IV. THE OTHER GENERALIZED MODAL SYLLOGISMS DERIVED FROM EM O-3
Theorem 1 states that is valid, and ' in Theorem 2(1) expresses that the validity of syllogism is deduced from that of syllogism . That is to show that there are reducible relations between these two syllogisms, and the others are similar.
Theorem 2: There are at least the following 29 valid generalized modal syllogisms obtained from :
(5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29)
Proof:
[1] no(v, w) ∧ most(v, z) → not all(z, w) (i.e. EM O-3, Theorem 1)
[2] no(w,v)Amost(v,z)→not all(z,w) (i.e. EM O-4, by [1] and Fact (4.2))
[3] not all(z,
(by [1] and Rule 2)
[4]
(by [3] and Fact (3.2))
[5]
(i.e. A□EH-2, by [4], Fact (2.1) and Fact (2.5))
- [6] not all(z, w)∧most(v, z)→¬□no(v, w) (by [1] and Rule 2)
- [7] (by [6], Fact (3.1) and Fact (3.2))
- [8]
- (i.e. AM I-1, by [7], Fact (2.1) and Fact (2.3))
- [9] (by [1],Fact(1.2)andFact(1.4))
- [10] all(v, AMI-3, by [9] and Definition 2)
- [11] not all(z, (by [2] and Rule 2)
- [12] (by [11] and Fact (3.2))
- [13] at most half of the
- (i.e. A□EH-4, by [12], Fact (2.1) and Fact (2.5))
- [14] not all(z, ) ∧ most(v, z) no(w, v) (by [2] and Rule 2)
- [15] (by [14], Fact (3.1) and Fact (3.2))
- [16]
- (i.e. , by [15], Fact (2.1) and Fact (2.3))
- [17] no all at most half of the .
- (by [5], Fact (1.1) and Fact (1.2))
- [18] no(z, all(v, at most half of the(v,z)
- (i.e. E□AH-2, by [17] and Definition 2)
- [19] no (by [8], Fact (1.1) and Fact (1.3))
- [20] no(z, -w)∧most(v,z)→◇ not all(v, -w)
- (i.e. EM O-1, by [19] and Definition 2)
- [21] all(v, -w)∧most(v, z)→diamond(D-w, z) (i.e. M□A◇I-3, by [10] and Fact (4.1))
- [22] no(D-w, z)∧□all(v, D-w)→at most half of the (v, z)
- (i.e. E□AH-1, by [18] and Fact (4.2))
- [23] no(D-w, z)∧most(v, z)→◇ not all(v, D-w)
- (i.e. EM O-2, by [20] and Fact (4.2))
- [24] all(v, fewer than half of the not all
- (by [21], Fact (1.6) and Fact (1.3))
- [25] all(v, -w)∧fewer than half of the(v, -z)→◇ not all(D-w, -z)
- (i.e. , by [24] and Definition 2)
- [26] least half of the
- (by [22], Fact (1.2) and Fact (1.7))
[27] least half of the ,
[28] all fewer than half of the not all(v,
[29] all fewer than half of the not all
[30] at most half of the
[31] at most half of the
[32] at most half of the (by [30] and Rule 2)
[33] most half of the
[34]
[35] at most half of the (by [30] and Rule 2)
[36] most half of the
[37] not all
[38] no alh at most half of the
[39] at most half of the
[40] at most half of the (by [31] and Rule 2)
[41] most half of the
[42]
- [43] at most half of the (by [31] and Rule 2)
- [44] most half of the (by [43], Fact (3.1) and Fact (3.2))
- [45] not all
Now, the other 29 generalized modal syllogisms have been deduced from the validity of . Similarly, more valid syllogisms can be inferred from it. This indicates that there are reducible relations between/among these syllogisms. Their validity can be proven similar to Theorem 1.
V. CONCLUSION
Due to the large number of generalized quantifiers in the English language, this paper only studies the fragment of generalized modal syllogistic that contains the quantifiers in Square-all" and Square-most". This paper proves that there are reducible relations between/ among the generalized modal syllogism and at least the above 29 valid generalized modal syllogisms. To be specific, this paper firstly proves the validity of on the basis of generalized quantifier theory, possible-world semantics, and set theory. Then, according to some facts and inference rules, the above 29 valid generalized modal syllogisms are derived from .
This method can also be used to study syllogisms with other generalized quantifiers, such as at most of the, more than of the, at least of the, fewer than of the. It is obvious that the above results obtained by deduction have not only consistency, but also theoretical value for the development of inference theory in artificial intelligence.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant No.22&ZD295.