Common Logic

Common Logic

Common logic (CL) is a framework for a family of logic languages, based on first-order logic, intended to facilitate the exchange and transmission of knowledge in computer-based systems.

The CL definition permits and encourages the development of a variety of different syntactic forms, called "dialects." A dialect may use any desired syntax, but it must be possible to demonstrate precisely how the concrete syntax of a dialect conforms to the abstract CL semantics, which are based on a model theoretic interpretation. Each dialect may be then treated as a formal language. Once syntactic conformance is established, a dialect gets the CL semantics for free, as they are specified relative to the abstract syntax only, and hence are inherited by any conformant dialect. In addition, all CL dialects are equivalent (i.e., can be mechanically translated to each other), although some may be more expressive than others.

In general, a less expressive subset of CL may be translated to a more expressive version of CL, but the reverse translation is only defined on a subset of the larger language.