One-Dimensional Fragment over Words and Trees

Abstract

One-dimensional fragment of first-order logic is obtained by restricting quantification to blocks of existential (universal) quantifiers that leave at most one variable free. We investigate this fragment over words and trees, presenting a complete classification of the complexity of its satisfiability problem for various navigational signatures, and comparing its expressive power with other important formalisms. These include the two-variable fragment with counting and the unary negation fragment.