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Most automated theorem provers suffer from the problemthat the resulting proofs are difficult to understand even for experiencedmathematicians. An effective communication between the system andits users, however, is crucial for many applications, such as in a mathematical assistant system. Therefore, efforts have been made to transformmachine generated proofs (e.g. resolution proofs) into natural deduction(ND) proofs. The state-of-the-art procedure of proof transformation fol-lows basically its completeness proof: the premises and the conclusionare decomposed into unit literals, then the theorem is derived by mul-tiple levels of proofs by contradiction. Indeterminism is introduced byheuristics that aim at the production of more elegant results. This inde-terministic character entails not only a complex search, but also leads tounpredictable results.In this paper we first study resolution proofs in terms of meaningful op-erations employed by human mathematicians, and thereby establish acorrespondence between resolution proofs and ND proofs at a more ab-stract level. Concretely, we show that if its unit initial clauses are CNFsof literal premises of a problem, a unit resolution corresponds directly toa well-structured ND proof segment that mathematicians intuitively un-derstand as the application of a definition or a theorem. The consequenceis twofold: First it enhances our intuitive understanding of resolutionproofs in terms of the vocabulary with which mathematicians talk aboutproofs. Second, the transformation process is now largely deterministicand therefore efficient. This determinism also guarantees the quality ofresulting proofs.
In this paper we generalize the notion of method for proofplanning. While we adopt the general structure of methods introducedby Alan Bundy, we make an essential advancement in that we strictlyseparate the declarative knowledge from the procedural knowledge. Thischange of paradigm not only leads to representations easier to under-stand, it also enables modeling the important activity of formulatingmeta-methods, that is, operators that adapt the declarative part of exist-ing methods to suit novel situations. Thus this change of representationleads to a considerably strengthened planning mechanism.After presenting our declarative approach towards methods we describethe basic proof planning process with these. Then we define the notion ofmeta-method, provide an overview of practical examples and illustratehow meta-methods can be integrated into the planning process.
We argue in this paper that sophisticated mi-croplanning techniques are required even formathematical proofs, in contrast to the beliefthat mathematical texts are only schematicand mechanical. We demonstrate why para-phrasing and aggregation significantly en-hance the flexibility and the coherence ofthe text produced. To this end, we adoptedthe Text Structure of Meteer as our basicrepresentation. The type checking mecha-nism of Text Structure allows us to achieveparaphrasing by building comparable combi-nations of linguistic resources. Specified interms of concepts in an uniform ontologicalstructure called the Upper Model, our se-mantic aggregation rules are more compactthan similar rules reported in the literature.
Extending the planADbased paradigm for auto-mated theorem proving, we developed in previ-ous work a declarative approach towards rep-resenting methods in a proof planning frame-work to support their mechanical modification.This paper presents a detailed study of a classof particular methods, embodying variations ofa mathematical technique called diagonaliza-tion. The purpose of this paper is mainly two-fold. First we demonstrate that typical math-ematical methods can be represented in ourframework in a natural way. Second we illus-trate our philosophy of proof planning: besidesplanning with a fixed repertoire of methods,metaADmethods create new methods by modify-ing existing ones. With the help of three differ-ent diagonalization problems we present an ex-ample trace protocol of the evolution of meth-ods: an initial method is extracted from a par-ticular successful proof. This initial method isthen reformulated for the subsequent problems,and more general methods can be obtained byabstracting existing methods. Finally we comeup with a fairly abstract method capable ofdealing with all the three problems, since it cap-tures the very key idea of diagonalization.
Most automated theorem provers suffer from the problem thatthey can produce proofs only in formalisms difficult to understand even forexperienced mathematicians. Effort has been made to reconstruct naturaldeduction (ND) proofs from such machine generated proofs. Although thesingle steps in ND proofs are easy to understand, the entire proof is usuallyat a low level of abstraction, containing too many tedious steps. To obtainproofs similar to those found in mathematical textbooks, we propose a newformalism, called ND style proofs at the assertion level , where derivationsare mostly justified by the application of a definition or a theorem. Aftercharacterizing the structure of compound ND proof segments allowing asser-tion level justification, we show that the same derivations can be achieved bydomain-specific inference rules as well. Furthermore, these rules can be rep-resented compactly in a tree structure. Finally, we describe a system calledPROVERB , which substantially shortens ND proofs by abstracting them tothe assertion level and then transforms them into natural language.
Planning Argumentative Texts
(1999)
This paper presents PROVERB a text planner forargumentative texts. PROVERB's main feature isthat it combines global hierarchical planning and un-planned organization of text with respect to local de-rivation relations in a complementary way. The formersplits the task of presenting a particular proof intosubtasks of presenting subproofs. The latter simulateshow the next intermediate conclusion to be presentedis chosen under the guidance of the local focus.
This paper outlines an implemented system called PROVERB that explains machine -found natural deduction proofs in natural language. Different from earlier works, we pursue a reconstructive approach. Based on the observation that natural deduction proofs are at a too low level of abstraction compared with proofs found in mathematical textbooks, we define first the concept of so-called assertion level inference rules. Derivations justified by these rules can intuitively be understood as the application of a definition or a theorem. Then an algorithm is introduced that abstracts machine-found ND proofs using the assertion level inference rules. Abstracted proofs are then verbalized into natural language by a presentation module. The most significant feature of the presentation module is that it combines standard hierarchical text planning and techniques that locally organize argumentative texts based on the derivation relation under the guidance of a focus mechanism. The behavior of the system is demonstrated with the help of a concrete example throughout the paper.
This paper outlines the microplanner of PROVERB , a system that generates multilingual text from machine-found mathematical proofs. The main representational vehicle is the text structure proposed by Meteer. Following Panaget, we also distinguish between the ideational and the textual semantic categories, and use the upper model to replace the former. Based on this, a further extension is made to support aggregation before realization decisions are made. While our the framework of our macroplanner is kept languageindependent, our microplanner draws on language specific linguistic sources such as realization classes and lexicon. Since English and German are the first two languages to be generated and because the sublanguage of our mathematical domain is relatively limited, the upper model and the textual semantic categories are designed to cope with both languages. Since the work reported is still in progress, we also discuss open problems we are facing.