Constructive S4 modal logics with the finite birelational frame property
This resolves open problems about finite model properties and decidability for several intuitionistic modal logics, providing foundational results for the logic community.
The paper proves that the intuitionistic modal logic CS4 has the finite frame property, resolving a long-standing open problem. It also establishes the finite frame property and decidability for related logics GS4, GS4^c, and S4I, with NEXPTIME upper bounds for the first three.
The logics $\mathsf{CS4}$ and $\mathsf{IS4}$ are the two leading intuitionistic variants of the modal logic $\mathsf{S4}$. Whether the finite model property holds for each of these logics have been long-standing open problems. It was recently shown that $\mathsf{IS4}$ has the finite frame property and thus the finite model property. In this paper, we prove that $\mathsf{CS4}$ also enjoys the finite frame property. Additionally, we investigate the following three logics closely related to $\mathsf{IS4}$. The logic $\mathsf{GS4}$ is obtained by adding the Gödel--Dummett axiom to $\mathsf{IS4}$; it is both a superintuitionistic and a fuzzy logic and has previously been given a real-valued semantics. We provide an alternative birelational semantics and prove strong completeness with respect to this semantics. The extension $\mathsf{GS4^c}$ of $\mathsf{GS4}$ corresponds to requiring a crisp accessibility relation on the real-valued semantics. We give $\mathsf{GS4^c}$ a birelational semantics corresponding to an extra confluence condition on the $\mathsf{GS4}$ birelational semantics and prove strong completeness. Neither of these two logics have the finite model property with respect to their real-valued semantics, but we prove that they have the finite frame property for their birelational semantics. Establishing the finite birelational frame property immediately establishes decidability, which was previously open for these two logics. Our proofs yield NEXPTIME upper bounds for $\mathsf{CS4}$, $\mathsf{GS4}$, and $\mathsf{GS4^c}$. The logic $\mathsf{S4I}$ is obtained from $\mathsf{IS4}$ by reversing the roles of the modal and relations intuitionistic in the birelational semantics. We also prove the finite frame property, and thereby decidability, for $\mathsf{S4I}$, although our proof does not yield an elementary complexity bound.