Cut formulae and logic programming

Abstract

In this paper we present a mechanism to define names for proof-witnesses of formulae and thus to use Gentzen's cut-rule in logic programming. We consider a program to be a set of logical formulae together with a list of such definitions. Occurrences of the defined names guide the proof-search by indicating when an instance of the cut-rule should be attempted. By using the cut-rule there are proofs that can be made dramatically shorter. We explain how this idea of using the cut-rule can be applied to the logic of hereditary Harrop formulae.