Intelligent Systems

Lecture 04: Logic based-Knowledge Representation

(Predicate Calculus)

Collected and Edited by:

Dr. Mina Younan
Lecturer of Computer Science,
Faculty of Computers and Information, Minia University

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 Lecture Outline
// this lecture collected and edited from Prof. Moheb Girgis Lectures in AI
Part One (cont.):
• The Propositional Calculus
• Rules of forming legal propositional calculus sentences
• The semantics of the propositional calculus
• Satisfiability and Validity Concepts
• The predicate calculus
o The syntax of the predicate calculus
o Predicate calculus sentences
o Verify Function
o Relationships between quantifiers
o Representing English sentences in predicate calculus

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 The Propositional Calculus

The syntax of the propositional calculus:

The first step in describing a language is to introduce its set of
symbols.
Propositional calculus symbols are:
• the propositional symbols: P, Q, R, S, … (uppercase letters near
the end of the English alphabet)
• truth symbols: true, false
• connectives: , , ‫ר‬, , 
Propositional symbols denote propositions, or statements about
the world that may be either true or false, such as "the car is red".

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 Rules of forming legal propositional calculus
sentences
1. Every propositional symbol and truth symbol is a sentence.
e.g. true, P, Q, and R are sentences.
2. The negation of a sentence is a sentence.
e.g. ‫ר‬P and ‫ר‬false are sentences.
3. The conjunction, i.e. and, of two sentences is a sentence.
e.g. P  Q is a sentence.
4. The disjunction, i.e. or, of two sentences is a sentence.
e.g. P  Q is a sentence.
5. The implication of one sentence from another is a sentence.
e.g. P  Q is a sentence.
6. The equivalence of two sentences is a sentence.
e.g. P  Q  R is a sentence.
Legal sentences are also called well-formed formulas or WFFs.

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 Rules of forming legal propositional calculus
sentences
• In P  Q, P and Q are called conjuncts.
• In P  Q, P and Q are called disjuncts.
• In P  Q, P is the premise and Q is the conclusion.
• It means P implies Q. If the implication is true when the
premise is true, the conclusion must also be true.

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 The semantics of the propositional calculus
• A propositional symbol corresponds to a statement about the world.
For example, P may denote the statement "it is raining".
• A proposition may be either true or false, given some state of the world.
• The truth value assignment to propositional sentences is called an
interpretation, an assertion about their truth in some possible world.
• Formally, an interpretation is a mapping from the propositional symbols
into the set {T, F}.
• Each possible mapping of truth value onto propositions corresponds to a
possible world of interpretation.
• Note that, the symbols true and false are part of the set of well-formed
sentences of the propositional calculus; i.e. they are distinct from the truth
value, T/F, assigned to a sentence.

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 The semantics of propositional calculus
The semantics of propositional calculus is defined as follows:
1. An interpretation of a set of propositions is the assignment of a truth value,
either T or F, to each propositional symbol.
For example, if P denotes the proposition "it is raining" and Q denotes
"I am at work", then the set of propositions {P, Q} has different functional
mapping into the truth values {T, F}. These mappings correspond to 4
different interpretations.
2. The interpretation or truth value assignment for sentences is determined as
follows:

Condition Truth value assignment Sentence

T true
F false
If P has truth value F. T ‫ר‬P
If P has truth value T. F

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 The semantics of propositional calculus
2. The interpretation or truth value assignment for sentences is determined as
follows:

Condition Truth value assignment Sentence

If both P and Q has truth value T. T PQ
Otherwise. F
If both P and Q has truth value F. F PQ
Otherwise. T
If P is T and Q is F. F PQ
Otherwise. T
If P and Q have the same truth value T PQ
assignments for all possible
interpretations.
Otherwise. F

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 The semantics of propositional calculus
The truth assignments of compound propositions are often described by truth
tables.
Example: The truth table for P  Q: PQ Q P
T T T
 The truth tables for , , ‫ר‬, and  can be F F T
defined in a similar fashion.
 The equivalence of two expressions may be T T F
demonstrated using truth tables. T F F

Example: A proof of the equivalence of P  Q and ‫ר‬P  Q:

P  Q  ‫ר‬P  Q PQ ‫ר‬P  Q ‫ר‬P Q P

T T T F T T
T F F F F T
T T T T T F
T T T T F F

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 Satisfiability and Validity
• A sentence is valid/ tautology if it holds under every interpretation.
• A sentence is satisfiable if it holds under some interpretation.
• A sentence is unsatisfiable/ contradiction if it holds under no interpretation.
Examples:
1. The sentence P  (Q  P) is valid.
2. The sentence (Q  P)  P is satisfiable.
3. The sentence P  ‫ ר‬P is unsatisfiable.
These examples can be proved using truth tables.

P ‫ר‬P (QP) P P (QP) QP Q P

F T T T T T
F T T T F T
F T T F T F
F F T T F F
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 The Predicate Calculus
• In propositional calculus, each atomic symbol (P, Q, etc.) denotes a
proposition of some complexity.
o A predicate is a parameterized proposition, that is a proposition with
parameters/variables.
 For example, instead of letting a single propositional symbol, P,
denote the entire sentence "It rained on Tuesday", we can create a
predicate weather that describes a relationship between a date and the
weather: weather (tuesday, rain).
• Through inference rules we can manipulate predicate calculus
expressions, accessing their individual components and inferring new
sentences.
o Predicate calculus also allows expressions to contain variables. 
Variables let us create general assertions about classes of entities.
 For example we could state that for all values of X, where X is a day
of the week, the statement weather (X, rain) is true, i.e., it rains every
day.

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 The syntax of the predicate calculus
Predicate calculus character set:
• The set of letters: a – z, and A – Z.
• The set of digits: 0, 1, …, 9.
• The underscore, _.

Predicate calculus symbols:

• Symbols in the predicate calculus begin with a letter and are followed by
any sequence of the legal characters mentioned above.
• Examples of legitimate predicate calculus symbols:
george fire3 bill XXX friends_of tom_and_jerry
• Examples of strings that are not legal symbols:
3jakab%cd **71 duck!! "no blanks allowed"

• Symbols are used to denote objects, properties, or relations in a world

of discourse.
• Predicate calculus symbols may represent variables, constants,
functions, or predicates.
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 The syntax of the predicate calculus
(1) Constants:
• They name specific objects or properties in the world.
• Constant symbols must begin with a lowercase letter.
• Examples of legal constant symbols:
george, tree, tall, and blue.
• The constants true and false are reserved as truth symbols.

(2) Variables:
• They are used to designate general classes of objects or
properties in the world.
• Variables are represented by symbols beginning with an
uppercase letter.
• Examples of legal variables: X, Man, Bird, and DAY.

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 The syntax of the predicate calculus
(3) Functions:
• They denote a mapping of one or more elements in the domain of the
function into a unique element of the range of the function.
• Elements of the domain and range are objects in the world of
discourse.
• Function symbols begin with a lowercase letter.
• A function expression is a function symbol followed by its arguments
enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas.
• The number of arguments is called the arity of the function.
• Examples of well-formed function expressions:
Function expression f(X, Y) father(david) plus(2, 3)
Arity 2 1 2

• Each function expression denotes the mapping of the arguments onto

a single object in the range, called the value of the function.
• The act of replacing a function with its value is called evaluation.

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 The syntax of the predicate calculus
(4) Predicates:
• A predicate names a relationship between zero or more objects
or between objects and their properties in the world.
• Predicate symbols are symbols beginning with a lowercase
letter.
• Examples of predicates are:
likes, equals, on, near, part_of, clear.
• Predicates have an associated positive integer referred to as the
arity or the number of its arguments.

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 The syntax of the predicate calculus
An atomic sentence: is a predicate constant of arity n, followed
by n terms, t1, t2, …, tn, enclosed in parentheses and separated
by commas.
• A predicate calculus term is either a constant, variable, or
function expression. It may be used to denote objects and
properties in the problem domain.
• The truth values, true and false, are also atomic sentences.
• Examples of atomic sentences are:
likes (george, kate) likes (X, george)
likes (george, sarah, tuesday) likes (X, Y)
friends (bill, george) helps (richard, bill)
friends (father_of(david), father_of(andrew))
• Atomic sentences can be combined using logical connectives
(, , ‫ר‬, , and ) to form sentences in the predicate calculus.

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 Variable quantifiers
• Variable quantifiers are symbols that constrain the meaning of a
sentence containing a variable. Quantifiers determine when predicate
calculus expressions are true.
• A quantifier Q is followed by a variable X and a sentence s: QXs.
• In the first order predicate calculus, there are two variable quantifiers:
o The universal quantifier, , indicates that the sentence is true for
all values of the variable.
For example, X likes (X, ice_cream) is true for all values in the
domain of the definition of X.
o The existential quantifier, , indicates that the sentence is true
for at least one value in the domain.
For example, Y friends (Y, peter) is true if there is at least one
person, indicated by Y, that is a friend of peter.

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 Predicate calculus sentences
Every atomic sentence is a sentence.
If s is a sentence, then so is its negation, ‫ר‬s.
If s1 and s2 are sentences, then so are their:
conjunction, s1  s2, disjunction, s1  s2,
implication, s1  s2, and equivalence, s1  s2.
If X is a variable and s is a sentence, then Xs is a sentence, and Xs is a
sentence.
Examples:
Let plus be a function symbol of arity 2 and let equal and foo be
predicate symbols with arity 2 and 3, respectively:
• plus (two, three) is a function and thus not an atomic sentence.
• equal (plus (two, three), five) is an atomic sentence.
• equal (plus (two, three), seven) is an atomic sentence. Note that this sentence
is false.
•  X foo (X, two, plus (two, three))  equal (plus (two, three), five)
is a sentence, because both conjuncts are sentences.
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 Example:
• This is an example of the use of predicate calculus to describe a simple
world. The domain of discourse is a set of known family relationships:
mother (eve, abel)
mother (eve, cain)
father (adam, able)
father (adam, cain)
X Y (father (X, Y)  mother (X, Y)  parent (X, Y))
X Y Z (parent (X, Y)  parent (X, Z)  sibling (Y, Z))

• These implications can be used to infer facts such as

sibling (abel, cain).

• The predicates mother and father are used to define a set of parent-
child relationships. The implications give general definitions of other
relationships, such as parent and sibling, in terms of these predicates.
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 The function verify_sentence:
It is a recursive function for verifying that an expression is a sentence. It
takes as argument a candidate expression (E) and returns success if the
expression is a sentence.
function verify_sentence (E)
begin
case
E is an atomic sentence: return success;
E is of the form QXs, where Q is either  or , and X is a variable:
if verify_sentence (s) returns success
then return success
else return fail;
E is of the form ‫ר‬s:
if verify_sentence (s) returns success
then return success
else return fail;
E is of the form s1 op s2, where op is a binary logical operator:
if verify_sentence (s1) returns success and
verify_sentence (s2) returns success
then return success
else return fail;
otherwise: return fail
end case
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 Relationships between quantifiers (‫ ר‬, and )

Several relationships between negation and the universal and the

existential quantifiers are given below. Also, the notion of a variable
name as a dummy symbol that stands for a set of constants is noted.

For predicates p and q and variables X and Y:

• ‫ר‬X p(X)  X ‫ר‬p(X)
• ‫ר‬X p(X)  X ‫ר‬p(X)
• X p(X)  Y p(Y)
• X q(X)  Y q(Y)
• X (p(X)  q(X))  X p(X)  Y q(Y)
• X (p(X)  q(X))  X p(X)  Y q(Y)

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 Representing English sentences in predicate calculus
Examples:
• If it doesn't rain on Monday, Tom will go to the mountains.
‫ ר‬weather (rain, monday)  go (tom, mountains)
• A bluebird is a blue-colored bird.
is_a (bluebird, bird)  has_color (bluebird, blue)
• All basketball players are tall.
X (basketball_player (X)  tall (X))
• Some people like anchovies.
X (person (X)  likes (X, anchovies))
• If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
equal (wishes, horses)  ride (beggars)
• No body likes taxes.
‫ר‬X likes (X, taxes)

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