The unification problem and several variants are presented. Various algorithms and data structures are discussed. Research on unification arising in several areas of computer science is surveyed, these areas include theorem proving, logic programming, and natural language processing. Sections of the paper include examples that highlight particular uses

We show that the problem of partial type inference in the nthb-order polymorphic X-calculus is equivalent to nth-order unification. On the one hand, this means that partial type inference in polymorphic X-calculi of order 2 or higher is undecidable. On the other hand, higher-order unification is often tractable in practice, and our translation entails a very useful algorithm for partial type inference in the w-order polymorphic X-calculus. We present an implementation in AProlog in full.

... this paper, and it is the starting point for proving some novel results about the undecidability of second-order unification presented in the rest of the paper. We prove that second-order unification is undecidable in the following three cases: (1) each second-order variable occurs at most twice and there are only two second-order variables; (2) there is only one second-order variable and it is unary; (3) the following conditions (i)#(iv) hold for some fixed integer n: (i) the arguments of all second-order variables are ground terms of size <n, (ii) the arity of all second-order variables is <n, (iii) the number of occurrences of second-order variables is #5, (iv) there is either a single second-order variable or there are two second-order variables and no first-order variables.

In this article we propose an extension of term rewriting techniques to automate the deduction in monotone pre-order theories. To prove an inclusion a ⊆ b from a given set I of them, we generate from I, using a completion procedure, a bi-rewrite system 〈R⊆, R⊇〉, that is, a pair of rewrite relations −−− → R ⊆ and −−− → R ⊇ , and seek a common term c such that a −−−→ R ⊆ c and b −−−→

... unification problems. Then, in this framework, we develop a new unification algorithm for a-calculus with dependent function (II) types. This algorithm is especially useful as it provides for mechanization in the very expressive Logical Framework (LF). The development (object-languages). The rich structure of a typed-calculus,asopposedtotraditional,rst- generalideaistousea-calculusasameta-languageforrepresentingvariousotherlanguages thelattercase,thealgorithmisincomplete,thoughstillquiteusefulinpractice. Thelastpartofthedissertationprovidesexamplesoftheusefulnessofthealgorithms.The algorithmrstfordependentproduct()types,andsecondforimplicitpolymorphism.In involvessignicantcomplicationsnotarisingHuet'scorrespondingalgorithmforthesimply orderabstractsyntaxtrees,allowsustoexpressrules,e.g.,programtransformationand typed-calculus,primarilybecauseitmustdealwithill-typedterms.Wethenextendthis Wecanthenuseunicationinthemeta-languagetomechanizeapplicationoftheserules.

Second-order unification is undecidable in general. Miller showed that unification of so-called higher-order patterns is decidable and unitary. Weshow that the unification of a linear higher-order pattern s with an arbitrary second-order term that shares no variables with s is decidable and finitary. A few extensions of this unification problem are still decidable: unifying two second-order terms, where one term is linear, is undecidable if the terms contain bound variables but decidable if they don't.

Abstract. There is a close relationship between word unification and second-order unification. This similarity has been exploited for instance for proving decidability of monadic second-order unification. Word unification can be easily decided by transformation rules (similar to the ones applied in higher-order unification procedures) when variables are restricted to occur at most twice. Hence a well-known open question was the decidability of second-order unification under this same restriction. Here we answer this question negatively by reducing simultaneous rigid E-unification to second-order unification. This reduction, together with an inverse reduction found by Degtyarev and Voronkov, states an equivalence relationship between both unification problems. Our reduction is in some sense reversible, providing decidability results for cases when simultaneous rigid E-unification is decidable. This happens, for example, for one-variable problems where the variable occurs at most twice (because rigid E-unification is decidable for just one equation). We also prove decidability when no variable occurs more than once, hence significantly narrowing the gap between decidable and undecidable second-order unification problems with variable occurrence restrictions. 1

. The second-order matching problem is the problem of determining, for a finite set {#t i , s i # | i # I} of pairs of a second-order term t i and a first-order closed term s i , called a matching expression, whether or not there exists a substitution # such that t i # = s i for each i # I . It is well-known that the second-order matching problem is NP-complete. In this paper, we introduce the following restrictions of a matching expression: k-ary, k-fv , predicate, ground , and function-free. Then, we show that the second-order matching problem is NP-complete for a unary predicate, a unary ground, a ternary function-free predicate, a binary function-free ground, and an 1-fv predicate matching expressions, while it is solvable in polynomial time for a binary function-free predicate, a unary function-free, a k-fv function-free (k # 0), and a ground predicate matching expressions. 1 Introduction The unification problem is the problem of determining whether or not any two ter...

Abstract. Bounded Second-Order Unification is the problem of deciding, for a given second-order equation t? = u and a positive integer m, whether there exists a unifier σ such that, for every second-order variable F, the terms instantiated for F have at most m occurrences of every bound variable. It is already known that Bounded Second-Order Unification is decidable and NP-hard, whereas general Second-Order Unification is undecidable. We prove that Bounded Second-Order Unification is NP-complete, provided that m is given in unary encoding, by proving that a size-minimal solution can be represented in polynomial space, and then applying a generalization of Plandowski’s polynomial algorithm that compares compacted terms in polynomial time. 1

We review known results and improve known boundaries between the decidable and the undecidable cases of second-order unification with various restrictions on second-order variables. As a key tool we prove an undecidability result that provides a partial solution to an open problem about simultaneous rigid E-unification.