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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.
Most automated theorem provers suffer from the problem that theycan produce proofs only in formalisms difficult to understand even forexperienced mathematicians. Efforts have been made to transformsuch machine generated proofs into natural deduction (ND) proofs.Although the single steps are now easy to understand, the entire proofis usually at a low level of abstraction, containing too many tedioussteps. Therefore, it is not adequate as input to natural language gen-eration systems.To overcome these problems, we propose a new intermediate rep-resentation, called ND style proofs at the assertion level . After illus-trating the notion intuitively, we show that the assertion level stepscan be justified by domain-specific inference rules, and that these rulescan be represented compactly in a tree structure. Finally, we describea procedure which substantially shortens ND proofs by abstractingthem to the assertion level, and report our experience with furthertransformation into natural language.
This paper describes a declarative approach forencoding the plan operators in proof planning,the so-called methods. The notion of methodevolves from the much studied concept of a tac-tic and was first used by A. Bundy. Signific-ant deductive power has been achieved withthe planning approach towards automated de-duction; however, the procedural character ofthe tactic part of methods hinders mechanicalmodification. Although the strength of a proofplanning system largely depends on powerfulgeneral procedures which solve a large class ofproblems, mechanical or even automated modi-fication of methods is necessary, since methodsdesigned for a specific type of problems willnever be general enough. After introducing thegeneral framework, we exemplify the mechan-ical modification of methods via a particularmeta-method which modifies methods by trans-forming connectives to quantifiers.
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.
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 linguistic part of an implemented system namedPROVERB[3] that transforms, abstracts, and verbalizes machine-found proofs innatural language. It aims to illustrate, that state-of-the-art techniques of natural language processing are necessary to produce coherent texts that resemble those found in typical mathematical textbooks, in contrast to the belief that mathematical texts are only schematic and mechanical.The verbalization module consists of a content planner, a sentence planner, and a syntactic generator. Intuitively speaking, the content planner first decides the order in which proof steps should be conveyed. It also some messages to highlight global proof structures. Subsequently, thesentence planner combines and rearranges linguistic resources associated with messages produced by the content planner in order to produce connected text. The syntactic generat or finally produces the surface text.
This paper describes the linguistic part of a system called PROVERB, which transforms, abstracts,and verbalizes machine-found proofs into formatedtexts. Linguistically, the architecture of PROVERB follows most application oriented systems, and is a pipelined control of three components. Its macroplanner linearizes a proof and plans mediating communicative acts by employing a combination of hierarchical planning and focus-guided navigation. The microplanner then maps communicative acts and domain concepts into linguistic resources, paraphrases and aggregates such resources to producethe final Text Structure. A Text Structure contains all necessary syntactic information, and can be executed by our realizer into grammatical sentences. The system works fully automatically and performs particularly well for textbook size examples.
This paper outlines an implemented system named PROVERBthat transforms and abstracts machine-found proofs to natural deduction style proofs at an adequate level of abstraction and then verbalizesthem in natural language. The abstracted proofs, originally employedonly as an intermediate representation, also prove to be useful for proofplanning and proving by analogy.
This paper deals with the reference choices involved in thegeneration of argumentative text. A piece of argument-ative text such as the proof of a mathematical theoremconveys a sequence of derivations. For each step of de-rivation, the premises (previously conveyed intermediateresults) and the inference method (such as the applica-tion of a particular theorem or definition) must be madeclear. The appropriateness of these references cruciallyaffects the quality of the text produced.Although not restricted to nominal phrases, our refer-ence decisions are similar to those concerning nominalsubsequent referring expressions: they depend on theavailability of the object referred to within a context andare sensitive to its attentional hierarchy . In this paper,we show how the current context can be appropriatelysegmented into an attentional hierarchy by viewing textgeneration as a combination of planned and unplannedbehavior, and how the discourse theory of Reichmann canbe adapted to handle our special reference problem.