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Week 2 (Tautologies, Contradictions and Contingencies)
Week 2 (Tautologies, Contradictions and Contingencies)
Objectives:
At the end of the lessons, students are expected/should be able to;
1. Construct Truth Value.
2. Differentiate Tautology, Contradiction or Contingency.
3. Identify if the given Compound Preposition is Tautology, Contradiction or
Contingency.
TAUTOLOGY – Compound Preposition which is always true no matter what the truth
values of the prepositions.
Example 1
Let’s consider this one particular preposition
p ̴p p˅̴p
T F T
F T T
We know that there are two possible truth values for the particular preposition that is
TRUE or FALSE.
Considering the Compound Preposition p or not p (p ˅ ̴ p).
What is the output of this Compound Preposition?
Disjunction means whenever we have one true value, the results will always be true.
The given compound preposition is always true; therefore, (p ˅ ̴ p) compound
preposition is a TAUTOLOGY.
p ̴p p˄̴p
T F F
F T F
Instead of “or” we can place “and” so the result is always FALSE.
Conjunction means whenever we have one false value, the result will always be
false.
The given compound preposition is always false; therefore, (p ˄ ̴ p) compound
preposition is a CONTRADITION.
CONTINGENCY – Compound Preposition which is sometimes true and sometimes
false.
Example 3
Suppose we have two prepositions p and q and a compound preposition p˄q.
p q p˄q
T T T
T F F
F T F
F F F
The truth value of the compound preposition is TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, it is
sometimes true and sometimes false. Hence, the compound preposition is a
CONTINGENCY.
A compound preposition is satifiable if there is at least one true result in its truth
table.
answer