Integration of Rewriting, Narrowing, Compilation, and Heuristics for Equality Reasoning in Resolution-Based Theorem Proving

Abstract

We present a framework for the integration of the Knuth-Bendix completion algorithm with narrowing methods, compiled rewrite rules, and a heuristic difference reduction mechanism for paramodulation. The possibility of embedding theory unification algorithms into this framework is outlined. Results are presented and discussed for several examples of equality reasoning problems in the context of an actual implementation of an automated theorem proving system (the MKRP-system) and a fast C implementation of the completion procedure. The MKRP-system is based on the clause graph resolution procedure. The thesis shows the indispensibility of the constraining effects of completion and rewriting for equality reasoning in general and quantifies the amount of speed-up caused by various enhancements of the basic method. The simplicity of the superposition inference rule allows to construct an abstract machine for completion, which is presented together with computation times for a concrete implementation.