The Complexity of Satisfiability for Sub-Boolean Fragments of ALC

The standard reasoning problem, concept satisfiability, in the basic description logic ALC is PSPACE-complete, and it is EXPTIMEcomplete in the presence of unrestricted axioms. Several fragments of ALC, notably logics in the FL-, EL-, and DL-Lite family, have an easier satisfiability problem; sometimes it is even tractable. All these fragments restrict the use of Boolean operators in one way or another. We look at systematic and more general restrictions of the Boolean operators and establish the complexity of the concept satisfiability problem in the presence of axioms. We separate tractable from intractable cases.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Arne Meier, Thomas Schneider 0002
• Keywords: Boolean Operators, Concept Satisfiability, CORR 2010, Education, Satisfiability Problem