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 Sergei Artemov
Anil Nerode (Eds.)
LNCS 10703

Logical Foundations
of Computer Science
International Symposium, LFCS 2018
Deerfield Beach, FL, USA, January 8–11, 2018
Proceedings

123
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 10703
Commenced Publication in 1973
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Gerhard Goos, Juris Hartmanis, and Jan van Leeuwen

Editorial Board
David Hutchison
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Takeo Kanade
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Josef Kittler
University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Jon M. Kleinberg
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Friedemann Mattern
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
John C. Mitchell
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Moni Naor
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
C. Pandu Rangan
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
Bernhard Steffen
TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
Demetri Terzopoulos
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Doug Tygar
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Gerhard Weikum
Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Saarbrücken, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7407
Sergei Artemov Anil Nerode (Eds.)
•

Logical Foundations
of Computer Science
International Symposium, LFCS 2018
Deerfield Beach, FL, USA, January 8–11, 2018
Proceedings

123
Editors
Sergei Artemov Anil Nerode
City University of New York Cornell University
New York, NY Ithaca, NY
USA USA

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Computer Science
ISBN 978-3-319-72055-5 ISBN 978-3-319-72056-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72056-2

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 Preface

The Symposium on Logical Foundations of Computer Science provides a forum for the
fast-growing body of work on the logical foundations of computer science, e.g., those
areas of fundamental theoretical logic related to computer science. The LFCS series
began with “Logic at Botik,” Pereslavl-Zalessky, 1989, which was co-organized by
Albert R. Meyer (MIT) and Michael Taitslin (Tver). After that, organization passed to
Anil Nerode.
Currently LFCS is governed by a Steering Committee consisting of Anil Nerode
(General Chair), Stephen Cook, Dirk van Dalen, Yuri Matiyasevich, Gerald Sacks,
Andre Scedrov, and Dana Scott.
The 2018 Symposium on Logical Foundations of Computer Science (LFCS 2018)
took place at the Wyndham Deerfield Beach Resort, Deerfield Beach, Florida, USA,
during January 8–11, 2018. This volume contains the extended abstracts of talks
selected by the Program Committee for presentation at LFCS 2018.
The scope of the symposium is broad and includes constructive mathematics and
type theory, homotopy type theory, logic, automata and automatic structures, com-
putability and randomness, logical foundations of programming, logical aspects of
computational complexity, parameterized complexity, logic programming and con-
straints, automated deduction and interactive theorem proving, logical methods in
protocol and program verification, logical methods in program specification and
extraction, domain theory logics, logical foundations of database theory, equational
logic and term rewriting, lambda and combinatory calculi, categorical logic and
topological semantics, linear logic, epistemic and temporal logics, intelligent and
multiple-agent system logics, logics of proof and justification, non-monotonic rea-
soning, logic in game theory and social software, logic of hybrid systems, distributed
system logics, mathematical fuzzy logic, system design logics, and other logics in
computer science.
We thank the authors and reviewers for their contributions. We acknowledge the
support of the U.S. National Science Foundation, The Association for Symbolic Logic,
Cornell University, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and
Florida Atlantic University.

October 2017 Anil Nerode

Sergei Artemov
 Organization

Steering Committee
Stephen Cook University of Toronto, Canada
Yuri Matiyasevich Steklov Mathematical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
Anil Nerode (General Chair) Cornell University, USA
Gerald Sacks Harvard University, USA
Andre Scedrov University of Pennsylvania, USA
Dana Scott Carnegie-Mellon University, USA
Dirk van Dalen Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Program Committee
Sergei Artemov (Chair) The City University of New York, USA
Eugene Asarin Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7, France
Steve Awodey Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Matthias Baaz The Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Lev Beklemishev Steklov Mathematical Institute, Moscow, Russia
Andreas Blass University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Samuel Buss University of California, San Diego, USA
Robert Constable Cornell University, USA
Thierry Coquand University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Nachum Dershowitz Tel Aviv University, Israel
Michael Fellows University of Bergen, Norway
Melvin Fitting The City University of New York, USA
Sergey Goncharov Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, Novosibirsk, Russia
Denis Hirschfeldt University of Chicago, USA
Martin Hyland University of Cambridge, UK
Rosalie Iemhoff Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Hajime Ishihara Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
Kanazawa, Japan
Bakhadyr Khoussainov The University of Auckland, New Zealand
Roman Kuznets The Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Daniel Leivant Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Robert Lubarsky Florida Atlantic University, USA
Victor Marek University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA
Lawrence Moss Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Anil Nerode Cornell University, USA
Hiroakira Ono Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
Kanazawa, Japan
Alessandra Palmigiano Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Ruy de Queiroz The Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil
VIII Organization

Ramaswamy Ramanujam The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India

Michael Rathjen University of Leeds, UK
Jeffrey Remmel University of California, San Diego, USA
Andre Scedrov University of Pennsylvania, USA
Helmut Schwichtenberg University of Munich, Germany
Philip Scott University of Ottawa, Canada
Alex Simpson University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Sonja Smets University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Sebastiaan Terwijn Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Alasdair Urquhart University of Toronto, Canada

Additional Reviewers

Josef Berger
S. P. Suresh
Catalin Dima
Giuseppe Greco
Yanjing Wang
Heinrich Wansing
Toshiyasu Arai
Lutz Straßburger
Rohit Parikh
 Contents

The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Antonis Achilleos

Justification Awareness Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Sergei Artemov

A Minimal Computational Theory of a Minimal

Computational Universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Arnon Avron and Liron Cohen

A Sequent-Calculus Based Formulation of the Extended

First Epsilon Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Matthias Baaz, Alexander Leitsch, and Anela Lolic

Angluin Learning via Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Simone Barlocco and Clemens Kupke

A Universal Algebra for the Variable-Free Fragment of RCr . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Lev D. Beklemishev

A Logic of Blockchain Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Kai Brünnler, Dandolo Flumini, and Thomas Studer

From Display to Labelled Proofs for Tense Logics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Agata Ciabattoni, Tim Lyon, and Revantha Ramanayake

Notions of Cauchyness and Metastability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Hannes Diener and Robert Lubarsky

A Gödel-Artemov-Style Analysis of Constructible Falsity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Thomas Macaulay Ferguson

Probabilistic Reasoning About Simply Typed Lambda Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Silvia Ghilezan, Jelena Ivetić, Simona Kašterović, Zoran Ognjanović,
and Nenad Savić

Polyteam Semantics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Miika Hannula, Juha Kontinen, and Jonni Virtema

On the Sharpness and the Single-Conclusion Property of Basic

Justification Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Vladimir N. Krupski
X Contents

Founded Semantics and Constraint Semantics of Logic Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Yanhong A. Liu and Scott D. Stoller

Separating the Fan Theorem and Its Weakenings II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Robert S. Lubarsky

Dialectica Categories for the Lambek Calculus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Valeria de Paiva and Harley Eades III

From Epistemic Paradox to Doxastic Arithmetic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

V. Alexis Peluce

A Natural Proof System for Herbrand’s Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Benjamin Ralph

Metastability and Higher-Order Computability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Sam Sanders

The Completeness of BCD for an Operational Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Rick Statman

A Tableau System for Instantial Neighborhood Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Junhua Yu

Interpretations of Presburger Arithmetic in Itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Alexander Zapryagaev and Fedor Pakhomov

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic

Antonis Achilleos(B)

School of Computer Science, Reykjavik University, Reykjavik, Iceland

antonios@ru.is

Abstract. We introduce the completeness problem for Modal Logic and

examine its complexity. For a definition of completeness for formulas,
given a formula of a modal logic, the completeness problem asks whether
the formula is complete for that logic. We discover that completeness and
validity have the same complexity — with certain exceptions for which
there are, in general, no complete formulas. To prove upper bounds, we
present a non-deterministic polynomial-time procedure with an oracle
from PSPACE that combines tableaux and a test for bisimulation, and
determines whether a formula is complete.

Keywords: Modal logic · Completeness · Computational complexity

Bisimulation

1 Introduction

For a modal logic l, we call a modal formula ϕ complete when for every modal
formula ψ on the same propositional variables as ϕ, we can derive from ϕ in l
either the formula ψ or its negation. For different modal logics l, we examine the
following problem: given a modal formula ϕ, is it complete for l? We call this
the completeness problem for l and we examine its complexity. Our main results
show that the completeness problem has the same complexity as provability, at
least for the logics we consider.
Given Modal Logic’s wide area of applications and the importance of logical
completeness in general, we find it surprising that, to the best of our knowledge,
the completeness problem for Modal Logic has not been studied as a computa-
tional problem so far. On the other hand, the complexity of satisfiability (and
thus validity) for Modal Logic has been studied extensively — for example, see
[1–3]. We examine the completeness problem for several well-known modal log-
ics, namely the extensions of K by the axioms Factivity, Consistency, Positive
Introspection, and Negative Introspection (also known as T , D, 4, and 5, respec-
tively) — i.e. the ones between K and S5. We discover that the complexity of
provability and completeness tend to be the same: the completeness problem

This research was partly supported by the project “TheoFoMon: Theoretical Foun-
dations for Monitorability” (grant number: 163406-051) of the Icelandic Research
Fund.
c Springer International Publishing AG 2018
S. Artemov and A. Nerode (Eds.): LFCS 2018, LNCS 10703, pp. 1–21, 2018.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72056-2_1
2 A. Achilleos

is PSPACE-complete if the logic does not have Negative Introspection and it is

coNP-complete otherwise. There are exceptions: for certain logics (D and T),
the completeness problem as we define it is trivial, as these logics have no finite
complete theories.
Our motivation partly comes from [4] (see also [5]), where Artemov raises the
following issue. It is the usual practice in Game Theory (and Epistemic Game
Theory) to reason about a game based on a model of the game description. On
the other hand, it is often the case in an epistemic setting that the game spec-
ification is not complete, thus any conclusions reached by examining any single
model are precarious. He thus argues for the need to verify the completeness of
game descriptions, and proposes a syntactic, proof-centered approach, which is
more robust and general, and which is based on a syntactic formal description of
the game. Artemov’s approach is more sound, in that it allows one to draw only
conclusions that can be safely derived from the game specification; on the other
hand, the model-based approach has been largely successful in Game Theory for
a long time. He explain that if we can determine that the syntactic specification
of a game is complete, then the syntactic and semantic approaches are equiv-
alent and we can describe the game efficiently, using one model. Furthermore,
he presents a complete and an incomplete formulation of the Muddy Children
puzzle.
For a formula–specification ϕ (for example, a syntactic description of a game),
if we are interested in the formulas we can derive from ϕ (the conclusions we can
draw from the game description), knowing that ϕ is complete can give a signifi-
cant computational advantage. If ϕ is complete and consistent, for a model M for
ϕ, ψ can be derived from ϕ exactly when ψ is satisfied in M at the same state
as ϕ. Thus, knowing that ϕ is complete allows us to reduce a derivability problem
to a model checking problem, which is easier to solve (see, for example, [3]). This
approach may be useful when we need to examine multiple conclusions, especially
if the model for ϕ happens to be small. On the other hand, if we discover that ϕ is
incomplete, then, as a specification it may need to be refined.
Notions similar to complete formulas have been studied before. Characteristic
formulas allow one to characterize a state’s equivalence class for a certain equiv-
alence relation. In our case, the equivalence relation is bisimulation on states of
(finite) Kripke models and the notions of characteristic and complete formulas
collapse, by the Hennessy-Milner Theorem [6], in that a formula is complete for
one of the logics we consider if and only if it is characteristic for a state in a
model for that logic. A construction of characteristic formulas for variants of
CCS processes [7] was introduced in [8]. This construction allows one to ver-
ify that two CCS processes are equivalent by reducing this problem to model
checking. Similar constructions were studied later in [9–11] for instance.
Normal forms for Modal Logic were introduced by Fine [12] and they can
be used to prove soundness, completeness, and the finite frame property for
several modal logics with respect to their classes of frames. Normal forms are
modal formulas that completely describe the behavior of a Kripke model up to a
certain distance from a state, with respect to a certain number of propositional
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 3

variables. Therefore, every complete formula is equivalent to a normal form, but

not all normal forms are complete, as they may be agnostic with respect to states
located further away. We may define that a formula is complete up to depth d
for logic l when it is equivalent to a normal form of modal depth (the nesting
depth of a formula’s modalities) at most d. We briefly discuss these topics in
Sect. 6.
We focus on a definition of completeness that emphasizes on the formula’s
ability to either affirm or reject every possible conclusion. We can also consider
a version of the problem that asks to determine if a formula is complete up to its
modal depth — that is, whether it is equivalent to a normal form. If we are inter-
ested in completely describing a setting, the definition we use for completeness
is more appropriate. However, it is not hard to imagine situations where this
variation of completeness is the notion that fits better, either as an approxima-
tion on the epistemic depth agents reason with, or, perhaps, as a description of
process behavior for a limited amount of time. We briefly examine this variation
in Sect. 6.

Overview. Section 2 provides background on Modal Logic, bisimulation, and rel-

evant complexity results. In Sect. 3, we draw our first conclusions about the com-
pleteness problem in relation to bisimulation and give our first complexity result
for logics with Negative Introspection. In Sect. 4, we examine different logics and
in which cases for each of these logics the completeness problem is non-trivial.
In Sect. 5, we examine the complexity of the completeness problem. We first
present a general lower bound. For logics with Negative Introspection we prove
coNP-completeness. For the remaining logics — the ones without Negative Intro-
spection for which the problem is not trivial — we present a non-deterministic
polynomial-time procedure with an oracle from PSPACE that accepts incomplete
formulas, as the section’s main theorem, Theorem 6 demonstrates. This proves
that the completeness problem for these cases is PSPACE-complete. These com-
plexity results are summarized in Table 1. In Sect. 6, we consider variations of
the problem and draw further conclusions. Full proofs for our results can be
found in the extended version, [13].

2 Background
We present needed background on Modal Logic, its complexity, and bisimulation,
and we introduce the completeness problem. For an overview of Modal Logic and
its complexity, we refer the reader to [3,14,15].

2.1 Modal Logic

We assume a countably infinite set of propositional variables p1 , p2 , . . .. Literals
are all p and ¬p, where p is a propositional variable. Modal formulas are con-
structed from literals, the constants ⊥, , the usual operators for conjunction
and disjunction ∧, ∨, and the dual modal operators,  and ♦:
ϕ ::= ⊥ |  | p | ¬p | ϕ ∧ ϕ | ϕ ∨ ϕ | ϕ | ♦ϕ.
4 A. Achilleos

The negation ¬ϕ of a modal formula, implication ϕ → ψ, and ϕ ↔ ψ are

constructed as usual. The language described by the grammar above is called L.
For a finite set of propositional variables P , L(P ) ⊆ L is the set of formulas
that use only variables from P . For a formula ϕ, P (ϕ) is the set of propositional
variables that appear in ϕ, so ϕ ∈ L(P (ϕ)). If ϕ ∈ L, then sub(ϕ) is the set of
subformulas of ϕ and sub(ϕ) = sub(ϕ) ∪ {¬ψ | ψ ∈ sub(ϕ)}. For Φ a  nonempty
finite subset
 of L, Φ is a conjunction of all elements of Φ and ∅ = ;
we define Φ similarly. The modal depth md(ϕ) of ϕ is the largest nesting
depth of its modal operators; the size of ϕ is |ϕ| = |sub(ϕ)|. For every d ≥ 0,
subd (ϕ) = {ψ ∈ subd (ϕ) | md(ψ) ≤ d}.
Normal modal logics use all propositional tautologies and axiom K, Modus
Ponens, and the Necessitation Rule:
ϕ ϕ→ψ ϕ
K : ϕ ∧ (ϕ → ψ) → ψ; ; .
ψ ϕ
The logic that has exactly these axioms and rules is the smallest normal modal
logic, K. We can extend K with more axioms:

D : ♦; T : ϕ → ϕ; 4 : ϕ → ϕ; 5 : ♦ϕ → ♦ϕ.

We consider modal logics that are formed from a combination of these axioms.
Of course, not all combinations make sense: axiom D (also called the Consistency
axiom) is a special case of T (the Factivity axiom). Axiom 4 is called Positive
Introspection and 5 is called Negative Introspection. Given a logic l and axiom a,
l+a is the logic that has as axioms all the axioms of l and a. Logic D is K+D, T
is K+T , K4 = K+4, D4 = K+D+4 = D+4, S4 = K+T +4 = T+4 = K4+T ,
KD45 = D4 + 5, and S5 = S4 + 5. From now on, unless we explicitly say
otherwise, by a logic or a modal logic, we mean one of the logics we defined
above. We use l ϕ to mean that ϕ can be derived from the axioms and rules of
l; when l is clear from the context, we may drop the subscript and just write .
A Kripke model is a triple M = (W, R, V ), where W is a nonempty set of
states (or worlds), R ⊆ W × W is an accessibility relation and V is a function
that assigns to each state in W a set of propositional variables. If P is a set
of propositional variables, then for every a ∈ W , VP (a) = V (a) ∩ P . To ease
notation, when (s, t) ∈ R we usually write sRt.
Truth in a Kripke model is defined through relation |= in the following way:
M, a |= p iff p ∈ V (a), and

M, a |= ⊥ and M, a |= ;
M, a |= p iff p ∈ V (a) and M, a |= ¬p iff p ∈/ V (a);
M, a |= ϕ ∧ ψ iff both M, a |= ϕ and M, a |= ψ;
M, a |= ϕ ∨ ψ iff M, a |= ϕ or M, a |= ψ;
M, a |= ♦ϕ iff there is some b ∈ W such that aRb and M, b |= ϕ; and
M, a |= ϕ iff for all b ∈ W such that aRb it is the case that M, b |= ϕ.
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 5

If M, a |= ϕ, we say that ϕ is true/satisfied in a of M. (W, R) is called a frame.

We call a Kripke model (W, R, V ) (resp. frame (W, R)) finite if W is finite.1 If
M is a model (for logic l) and a is a state of M, then (M, a) is a pointed model
(resp. for l).
Each modal logic l is associated with a class of frames F (l), that includes
all frames (W, R) for which R meets certain conditions, depending on the logic’s
axioms. If l has axiom:

D, then R must be serial (for every state a ∈ W there must be some b ∈ W

such that aRb);
T , then R must be reflexive (for all a ∈ W , aRa);
4, then R must be transitive (if aRbRc, then aRc);
5, then R must be euclidean (if aRb and aRc, then bRc).

A model (W, R, V ) is a model for a logic l if and only if (W, R) ∈ F (l). We

call a formula satisfiable for logic l, if it is satisfied in a state of a model for l.
We call a formula valid for logic l, if it is satisfied in all states of all models for l.

Theorem 1 (Completeness, Finite Frame Property). A formula ϕ is valid

for l if and only if it is provable in l; ϕ is satisfiable for l if and only if it is
satisfied in a finite model for l.

For the remainder of this paper we only consider finite Kripke models and
frames. For a finite model M = (W, R, V ), we define |M| = |W | + |R|.

Definition 1. A formula ϕ is called complete for logic l when for every ψ ∈

L(P (ϕ)), l ϕ → ψ or l ϕ → ¬ψ; otherwise, it is incomplete for l.

By Theorem 1, ϕ is complete for l exactly when for every ψ ∈ L(P (ϕ)), either
ψ or its negation is true at every (finite) pointed model for l that satisfies ϕ.

2.2 Bisimulation

An important notion in Modal Logic (and other areas) is that of bisimulation. Let
P be a (finite) set of propositional variables. For Kripke models M = (W, R, V )
and M = (W  , R , V  ), a non-empty relation R ⊆ W × W  is a bisimulation
(respectively, bisimulation modulo P ) from M to M when the following condi-
tions are satisfied for all (s, s ) ∈ R:

– V (s) = V  (s ) (resp. VP (s) = VP (s )).

– For all t ∈ W such that sRt, there exists t ∈ W  s.t. (t, t ) ∈ R and s R t .
– For all t ∈ W  such that s R t , there exists t ∈ W s.t. (t, t ) ∈ R and sRt.

1
According to our definition, for a finite model M = (W, R, V ) and a ∈ W , V (a)
can be infinite. However, we are mainly interested in (W, R, VP ) for finite sets of
propositions P , which justifies calling M finite.
6 A. Achilleos

We call pointed models (M, a), (M , a ) bisimilar (resp. bisimilar modulo P )
and write (M, a) ∼ (M , a ) (resp. (M, a) ∼P (M , a )) if there is a bisim-
ulation (resp. bisimulation modulo P ) R from M to M , such that aRa .
If (M, a) is a pointed model, and P a set of propositional variables, then
T hP (M, a) = {ϕ ∈ L(P ) | M, a |= ϕ}. We say that two pointed models are
equivalent and write (M, a) ≡P (M , a ) when T hP (M, a) = T hP (M , a ). The
following simplification of the Hennessy-Milner Theorem [6] gives a useful char-
acterization of pointed model equivalence; Proposition 1 is its direct consequence.

Theorem 2 (Hennessy-Milner Theorem). If (M, a), (M , a ) are finite

pointed models, then

(M, a) ≡P (M , a ) if and only if (M, a) ∼P (M , a ).

Proposition 1. A formula ϕ is complete for a logic l if and only if for every

two pointed models (M, a) and (M , a ) for l, if M, a |= ϕ and M , a |= ϕ, then
(M, a) ∼P (M , a ).

Paige and Tarjan in [16] give an efficient algorithm for checking whether two
pointed models are bisimilar. Theorem 3 is a variation on their result to account
for receiving the set P of propositional variables as part of the algorithm’s input.

Theorem 3. There is an algorithm which, given two pointed models (M, a)

and (M , a ) and a finite set of propositional variables P , determines whether
(M, a) ∼P (M , a ) in time O(|P | · (|M| + |M |) · log(|M| + |M |)).

2.3 The Complexity of Satisfiability

For logic l, the satisfiability problem for l, or l-satisfiability asks, given a formula
ϕ, if ϕ is satisfiable. The provability problem for l asks if l ϕ.
The classical complexity results for Modal Logic are due to Ladner [1], who
established PSPACE-completeness for the satisfiability of K, T, D, K4, D4,
and S4 and NP-completeness for the satisfiability of S5. Halpern and Rêgo
later characterized the NP–PSPACE gap by the presence or absence of Negative
Introspection [2], resulting in Theorem 4.

Theorem 4. If l ∈ {K, T, D, K4, D4, S4}, then l-provability is PSPACE-

complete and l + 5-provability is coNP-complete.

3 The Completeness Problem and Axiom 5

The completeness problem for l asks, given a formula ϕ, if ϕ is complete for l.
In this section, we explain how to adjust Halpern and Rêgo’s techniques from
[2] to prove similar complexity bounds for the completeness problem for logics
with Negative Introspection. In the course of proving the coNP upper bound for
logics with Negative Introspection, Halpern and Rêgo give in [2] a construction
that provides a small model for a satisfiable formula. We can adjust parts of
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 7

their construction and conclude with Corollary 2 and from that, Lemma 1 and
Corollary 1. The remaining results in this section are consequence of these.
For a logic l + 5, we call a pointed model (M, s) for l + 5 flat when

– M = ({s} ∪ W, R, V );
– R = R1 ∪ R2 , where R1 ⊆ {s} × W and R2 is an equivalence relation on W ;
and
– if l ∈ {T,S4}, then s ∈ W .

Lemma 1 informs us that flat models are a normal form for models of logics with
axiom 5. Negative Introspection. and it is part of the construction from [2].

Lemma 1. Every pointed l + 5-model (M, s) is bisimilar to a flat pointed l + 5-

model.

Proof. Let W  be the set of states of M reachable from s and R the restriction of
the accessibility relation of M on W  . It is easy to see that the identity relation is
a bisimulation from M to M , so (M, s) ∼ (M , s); let W = {w ∈ W  | ∃w Rw}.
Therefore W  = W ∪ {s} and if l ∈ {T,S4}, then s ∈ W . Since M is an l + 5-
model, R is euclidean. Therefore, the restriction of R on W is reflexive. This in
turn means that R is symmetric in W : if a, b ∈ W and aRb, since aRa, we also
have bRa. Finally, R is transitive in W : if aRbRc and a, b, c ∈ W , then bRa, so
aRc. Therefore R is an equivalence relation when restricted on W . 


The construction from [1,2] continues to filter the states of the flat model,
resulting in a small model for a formula ϕ. Using this construction, Halpern
and Rêgo prove Corollary 1 [2]; the NP upper bound for l + 5-satisfiability of
Theorem 4 is a direct consequence.

Corollary 1. Formula ϕ is l + 5-satisfiable if and only if it is satisfied in a flat

l + 5-model of O(|ϕ|) states.

Since we are asking whether a formula is complete, instead of whether it is

satisfiable, we want to be able to find two small non-bisimilar models for ϕ when
ϕ is incomplete. For this, we need a characterization of bisimilarity between flat
models.

Lemma 2. Flat pointed models (M, a) = ({a}∪W, R, V ) and (M , a ) = ({a }∪

W  , R , V  ) are bisimilar modulo P if and only if VP (a) = VP (a ) and:

– for every b ∈ W , there is some b ∈ W  such that VP (b) = VP (b );

– for every b ∈ W  , there is some b ∈ W  such that VP (b) = VP (b );
– for every b ∈ W , if aRb, then there is a b ∈ W  such that a Rb and VP (b) =
VP (b ); and
– for every b ∈ W  , if a Rb , then there is a b ∈ W  such that aRb and VP (b) =
VP (b ).
8 A. Achilleos

Proof. If these conditions are met, we can define bisimulation R such that aRa
and for b ∈ W and b ∈ W  , bRb iff VP (b) = VP (b ); on the other hand, if there
is a bisimulation, then it is not hard to see by the definition of bisimulation that
these conditions hold — for both claims, notice that the conditions above, given
the form of the models, correspond exactly to the conditions from the definition
of bisimulation. 


This gives us Corollary 2, which is a useful characterization of incomplete

formulas.

Corollary 2. Formula ϕ is incomplete for l + 5 if and only if it has two non-

bisimilar flat pointed models for l + 5 of at most O(|ϕ|) states.

Proof. If ϕ has two non-bisimilar pointed models for l + 5, then by Theorem 2,

it is incomplete. On the other hand, if ϕ is incomplete, again by Theorem 2 and
Lemma 1, ϕ has two non-bisimilar flat pointed models, (M, a) = ({a} ∪ W, R, V )
and (M , a ) = ({a } ∪ W  , R , V  ). By Lemma 2 and without loss of generality,
we can distinguish three cases:
– there is some p ∈ VP (a) \ VP (a ): in this case let ψ = p;
   
– there is some b ∈ W , such  that for all b ∈ W , VP (b) = VP (b ): in this case
let ψ = ♦♦( VP (b) ∧ ¬ (P \ VP (b)));

– there is some b ∈ W , such that aRb  and for all b ∈ W  such that a Rb ,
 
VP (b) = VP (b ): in this case let ψ = ♦( VP (b) ∧ ¬ (P \ VP (b))).
In all these cases, both ϕ ∧ ψ and ϕ ∧ ¬ψ are satisfiable and of size O(|ϕ|), so
by Corollary 1, each is satisfied in a non-bisimilar flat pointed model for l + 5 of
at most O(|ϕ|) states. 


Our first complexity result is a consequence of Corollary 2 and Theorem 3:

Proposition 2. The completeness problem for logic l + 5 is in coNP.

Proof. By Corollary 2 and Theorem 3. 



In the following, when P is evident, we will often omit any reference to it and
instead of bisimulation modulo P , we will call the relation simply bisimulation.

4 The Completeness Problem and Triviality

The first question we must answer concerning the completeness problem for l is
whether there are any satisfiable and complete formulas for l. If not, then the
problem is trivial. We examine this question with parameters the logic l and
whether P , the set of propositional variables we use, is empty or not. If for a
logic l the problem is nontrivial, then we give a complete formula ϕlP that uses
exactly the propositional variables in P . We see that for P = ∅, completeness
can be trivial for another reason: for some logics,
 when P = ∅, all formulas are
complete. On the other hand, when P = ∅, P is incomplete for every logic.
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 9

4.1 Completeness and K

K
 P = ∅ or not, completeness is nontrivial for K and K4: let ϕP =
Whether
K4
ϕP = P ∧ ⊥ for every finite P . Formula  is incomplete for K and K4.

Lemma 3. Formula P ∧ ⊥ is complete and satisfiable for K and for K4.

Proof. A model that satisfies ϕKP is M = ({a}, ∅, V ), where V (a) = P . If there

is another model M , a |= ϕK  
P then M , a |= ⊥, so there are no accessible
,
worlds from a in M ; therefore, R = {(a, a )} is a bisimulation.
 



Notice that if ϕ is complete for l, then it is complete for every extension of l.

Thus, ϕK P is complete for all other logics. However, we are looking for satisfiable
and complete formulas for each logic, so finding one complete formula for K is
not enough. On the other hand, if l is an extension of l (by a set of axioms) and a
formula ϕ is complete for l and satisfiable for l , then we know that ϕ is satisfiable
and complete for all logics between (and including) l and l . Unfortunately, the
following lemma demonstrates that we cannot use this convenient observation
to reuse ϕKP — except perhaps for K5 and K45, but these can be handled just
as easily together with the remaining logics with Negative Introspection.

4.2 Completeness and Consistency

When l has axiom T or D, but not 4 or 5, P determines if a formula is complete:

Lemma 4. Let l be either D or T. A satisfiable formula ϕ ∈ L is complete with

respect to l if and only if P (ϕ) = ∅.

Proof. When P = ∅, all models are bisimilar through the total bisimulation;
therefore, all formulas ϕ, where P (ϕ) = ∅ are trivially complete. We now consider
the case for P = ∅; notice that we can assume that l = D, as D is contained in
T. Let the modal depth of ϕ be d and let M, a |= ϕ, where M = (W, R, V ); let
x∈/ W ∗ , a0 = a, and

Πd = {a0 · · · ak ∈ W ∗ | k ≤ d and for all 0 ≤ i < k, ai Rai+1 }.

Then, we define M1 = (W  , R , V1 ) and M2 = (W  , R , V2 ), where

W  = Πd ∪ {x};
R = {(α, αb) ∈ W 2 | b ∈ W } ∪ {(a0 a1 · · · ad , x) ∈ W 2 } ∪ {(x, x)}
Vi (αb) = V (b), for i = 1, 2, 0 ≤ |α| < d;
V1 (x) = ∅; and V2 (x) = P.

To prove that M1 , a |= ϕ and M2 , a |= ϕ, we prove that for ψ ∈ sub(ϕ),

for every i = 1, 2 and w = a0 · · · ak ∈ Πd , where k ≤ d − md(ψ), Mi , w |= ψ if
and only if M, ak |= ψ. We use induction on ψ. If ψ is a literal or a constant,
the claim is immediate and so are the cases of the ∧, ∨ connectives. If ψ = ψ  ,
then md(ψ  ) = md(ψ) − 1; Mi , w |= ψ iff for every wR w , Mi , w |= ψ  iff for
10 A. Achilleos

every ak R b, M, b |= ψ  (by the Inductive Hypothesis) iff M, ak |= ψ; the case

of ψ = ♦ψ  is symmetric.
If (M1 , a) ∼ (M2 , a) through bisimulation R from M1 to M2 , then notice
that in both models any sufficiently long path from a will end up at x; therefore,
by the conditions of bisimulation, xRx, which is a contradiction, since V1 (x) =
V2 (x). So, ϕ is satisfied in two non-bisimilar models for D. 


4.3 Completeness, Consistency, and Positive Introspection

 
For every finite P , let ϕD4
P = ϕS4
P = P ∧  P . As the following lemma
demonstrates, ϕD4
P is a complete formula for D4 and S4.

Lemma 5. For every finite P , ϕD4

P is complete for D4 and S4; all formulas in
L(∅) are complete for D4 and S4.

Proof. Let M, a |= ϕD4   D4

P and M , a |= ϕP ; let R be the relation that connects
all states of M that are reachable from a (including a) to all states of M that are
reachable from a (including a ); it is not hard to verify that R is a bisimulation.
Notice that if P = ∅, then ϕD4P is a tautology, thus all formulas are complete.  

It is straightforward to see that ϕD4

P issatisfiable for every logic l: consider a
model based on any frame for l, where P holds at every state. Therefore:

Corollary 3. ϕD4 is satisfiable and complete for every extension of D4.2

4.4 Consistency and Negative Introspection

 
For logic l = l + 5, let ϕlP = P ∧ ♦ P .
Lemma 6. For any logic l = l + 5, ϕlP is a satisfiable complete formula for l.

Proof. By Lemma 1, ϕlP is complete. It is satisfied in ({a}, {(a, a)}, V ), where

V (a) = P . 


When P = ∅, we can distinguish two cases. If l ∈ {D,D4,T,S4}, then ϕl∅ is a

tautology, therefore all formulas in L(P ) are complete for l.3 If l ∈ {K,K4},
then there are exactly two non-bisimilar modulo ∅ models for l; Therefore, if
P = ∅ the completeness problem for K5 and K45 is not trivial, but it is easy to
solve: a formula with no propositional variables is complete for l ∈ {K5, K45}
if it is satisfied in at most one of these two models.

Corollary 4. If P = ∅, the completeness problem for K5 and K45 is in P.

2
Although for the purposes of this paper we only consider a specific set of modal
logics, it is interesting to note that the corollary can be extended to a much larger
class of logics.
3
This is also a corollary of Lemma 4, as these are extensions of D and T.
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 11

4.5 Completeness and Modal Logics

A logic l has a nontrivial completeness problem if for P = ∅, there are com-
plete formulas for l. From the logics we examined, only D and T have trivial
completeness problems. Table 1 summarizes the results of this section and of
Sect. 5 regarding the completeness problem. As the table demonstrates, we can
distinguish the following cases. For K, the completeness problem is non-trivial
and PSPACE-complete; this does not change when we add axiom 4. Once we
add axiom D to K, but not 4 or 5, the completeness problem becomes trivial;
adding the stronger axiom T does not change the situation. Adding both 4 and
D or T to K makes completeness PSPACE-complete again, except when P = ∅.
Regardless of other axioms, if the logic has Negative Introspection, completeness
is coNP-complete — unless P = ∅, when the situation depends on whether the
logic has D (or the stronger T ) or not.

Table 1. The complexity of the completeness problem for different modal logics. Trivial
(all) indicates that all formulas in this case are complete for the logic; trivial (none)
indicates that there is no satisfiable, complete formula for the logic.

Modal logic P =∅ P = ∅
K, K4 PSPACE-complete PSPACE-complete
D, T Trivial (all) Trivial (none)
D4, S4 Trivial (all) PSPACE-complete
K5, K45 In P coNP-complete
l + 5, l = K, K4 Trivial (all) coNP-complete

5 The Complexity of Completeness

Our main result is that for a modal logic l, the completeness problem has the
same complexity as provability for l, as long as we allow for propositional vari-
ables in a formula and l-completeness is nontrivial (see Table 1). For the lower
bounds, we consider hardness under polynomial-time reductions. As the hard-
ness results are relative to complexity classes that include coNP, these reductions
suffice.

5.1 A Lower Bound

We present a lower bound for the complexity of the completeness problem: that
the completeness problem is at least as hard as provability for a logic, as long as
it is nontrivial.
Theorem 5. Let l be a logic that has a nontrivial completeness problem and let
C be a complexity class. If l-provability is C-hard, then the completeness problem
for l is C-hard.
12 A. Achilleos

Proof. To prove the theorem we present a reduction from l-provability to the

completeness problem for l. From a formula ϕ, the reduction constructs in poly-
nomial time a formula ϕc , such that ϕ is provable if and only is ϕc is complete.
For each logic l with nontrivial completeness and finite set of propositional vari-
ables P , in Sect. 4 we provided a complete formula ϕlP . This formula is satisfied
in a model of at most two states, which can be generated in time O(|P |). Let
(Ml , al ) be such a pointed model for ϕlP .
Any pointed model that satisfies ϕlP is bisimilar to (Ml , al ). Given a formula
ϕ ∈ L(P ), we can determine in linear time if Ml , al |= ϕ. There are two cases:

– Ml , al |= ϕ, in which case ϕ is not provable and we set ϕc = P .
– Ml , al |= ϕ, so ¬ϕ ∧ ϕlP is not satisfiable, in which case we set ϕc = ϕ → ϕlP .
We demonstrate that ϕ is provable if and only if ϕ → ϕlP is complete.
– If ϕ is provable, then ϕ → ϕlP is equivalent to ϕlP , which is complete.
– On the other hand, if ϕ → ϕlP is complete and (M, a) is any pointed
model, we show that M, a |= ϕ, implying that if ϕ → ϕlP is complete,
then ϕ is provable. If (M, a) ∼P (Ml , al ), then from our assumptions
M, a |= ¬ϕ, thus M, a |= ϕ. On the other hand, if (M, a) ∼P (Ml , al ),
since (Ml , al ) |= ϕ → ϕlP and ϕ → ϕlP is complete, M, a |= ϕ → ϕlP ,
therefore M, a |= ϕ. 


Theorem 5 applies to more than the modal logics that we have defined in
Sect. 2. For Propositional Logic, completeness amounts to the problem of deter-
mining whether a formula does not have two distinct satisfying assignments,
therefore it is coNP-complete. By similar reasoning, completeness for First-order
Logic is undecidable, as satisfiability is undecidable.

5.2 Upper Bounds

The case of logics with axiom 5 is now straightforward; from Theorem 5 and
Proposition 2:

Proposition 3. The completeness problem for logic l + 5 is coNP-complete.

For the logics without axiom 5, by Theorem 4, satisfiability and provability

are both PSPACE-complete. So, completeness is PSPACE-hard, if it is nontrivial.
It remains to show that it is also in PSPACE. To this end we present a procedure
that decides completeness for a modal formula. We call it the CC Procedure.
Parts of this procedure are similar to the tableaux by Fitting [17] and Massacci
[18] for Modal Logic, in that the procedure explores local views of a tableau.
For more on tableaux the reader can see [19]. The CC Procedure is a non-
deterministic polynomial time algorithm that uses an oracle from PSPACE. It
accepts exactly the incomplete formulas, thus establishing that the completeness
problems for these logics is in PSPACE. We have treated the case for logics with
axiom 5, and the completeness problem for D and T is trivial. Therefore, form
now on, we fix a logic l that can either be K, or have axiom 4 and be one of
K4, D4, and S4.
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 13

The CC Procedure for Modal Logic l on ϕ. Intuitively, the procedure tries

to demonstrate that there are two models for ϕ that are not bisimilar. We first
give a few definitions that we need to describe the procedure.
For our procedure, states are sets of formulas from sub(ϕ). The procedure
generates structures that we call views. A view S is a pair (p(S), C(S)) of a
(possibly empty) set C(S) of states, that are called the children-states of S and
a distinguished state p(S) called the parent-state of S. Each view is allowed to
have up to |ϕ| children-states.

Definition 2. We call a set s of formulas l-closed if the following conditions

hold:
– if ϕ1 ∧ ϕ2 ∈ s, then ϕ1 , ϕ2 ∈ s;
– if ϕ1 ∨ ϕ2 ∈ s, then ϕ1 ∈ s or ϕ2 ∈ s;
– if ψ ∈ s and l has axiom T , then ψ ∈ s;
– for every p ∈ P , either p ∈ s or ¬p ∈ s.
We call a view S l-complete (or complete if l is fixed) if the following con-
ditions hold:
– the parent-state and everychild-state of that view are l-closed;
– for every ♦ψ ∈ p(S), ψ ∈  C(S);
– for every ψ ∈ p(S), ψ ∈ C(S); 
– if l has axiom 4, then for every ψ ∈ p(S), ψ ∈ C(S);
– if l has axiom D, then C(S) = ∅.

For state a, th(a) = a. A state a ⊆ sub(ϕ) is maximal if it is a maximally
consistent subset of sub(ϕ). A child-state c of a view S is K-maximal when it is a
maximally consistent subset of subd (ϕ), where d = max{md(c ) | c ∈ C(S)}. A
view S is consistent when every state of S is a consistent set of formulas. A view
S  completes view S when: S  is l-complete; p(S) ⊆ p(S  ); for every a ∈ C(S)
there is an a ∈ C(S  ) such that a ⊆ a ; and: if l = K, then every a ∈ C(S  ) is
K-maximal; if l has axiom 4, then every a ∈ C(S  ) is maximal.

A view gives a local view of a model, as long as it is consistent. The proce-

dure generates views and ensures that they are complete — so that all relevant
information is present in each view — and consistent — so that the view indeed
represents parts of a model. If the parent-state can represent two non-bisimilar
states of two models (say, s and t), then the procedure should be able to provide
a child, representing a state accessible from s or t that is not bisimilar to any
state accessible from s or t, respectively. Since the states are (K-)maximal, two
states that are not identical can only be satisfied in non-bisimilar models. The
procedure is given in Table 2.
This section’s main theorem is Theorem 6 and informs us our procedure can
determine the completeness of formula ϕ in at most |ϕ| + 2 steps. We conclude
that the completeness problem for logics without axiom 5 is in PSPACE.

Theorem 6. The CC Procedure accepts ϕ if and only if ϕ is incomplete.

14 A. Achilleos

Table 2. The CC Procedure on ϕ for logic l ∈ {K, K4, D4, S4}.

Initial conditions: Non-deterministically generate maximal states a and b that

include ϕ; if there are none, then return “reject”.
If a = b, then return “accept.”
Initialize N to |ϕ| + 2.
Construction: Non-deterministically generate a consistent view S that
completes (a, ∅), having up to |ϕ| children-states.
Condition: If C(S) = ∅, then return “reject.”
If there is a child-state c ∈ C(S), such that l th(a) → ♦th(c),
then return “accept.”
Next step: Otherwise, non-deterministically pick a child c ∈ C(S) and set
a := c.
If N > 0, then set N := N − 1 and continue from
“Construction.”
If N = 0, then return “reject”.

Proof (Part of Proof ). We give the proof of the theorem, but we omit certain
details. The interested reader can see [13] for a full proof. We prove that the CC
Procedure has a way to accept ϕ if and only if ϕ is satisfied in two non-bisimilar
models. By Theorem 2, the theorem follows.

We assume that there are two non-bisimilar pointed models (A, w) and (B, w ),
such that A, w |= ϕ and B, w |= ϕ. We prove that the CC Process accepts ϕ
in |ϕ| + 2 steps. We call these models the underlying models; the states of the
underlying models are called model states to distinguish them from states that
the process uses. Let A = (W A , RA , V A ) and B = (W B , RB , V B ); we can assume
that W A ∩ W B = ∅. Let f : W A × W B → W A ∪ W B be a partial function that
maps every pair (s, t) of non-bisimilar pairs to a model state c accessible from s
or t that is non-bisimilar to every state accessible from t or s, respectively. We
call f a choice-function. We can see that the procedure can maintain that the
maximal state it generates each time is satisfied in two non-bisimilar states s, t,
one from A and the other from B, respectively: at the beginning these are w
and w . At every step, the procedure can pick a child c that is satisfied in f (s, t).
If l th(a) → ♦th(c), then the procedure terminates and accepts the input.
Otherwise, c is satisfied in f (s, t) and in another state that is non-bisimilar to
f (s, t). Let that other state be called a counterpart of f (s, t).
If l = K, then at every step, the procedure can reduce the modal depth of a,
and therefore, afterat most |ϕ| steps, the procedure can simply choose P = P (ϕ)
as a state. Since ♦ P is not derivable from any consistent set of modal depth 0,
the procedure can terminate and accept the input. We now assume that l = K.
We demonstrate that if ϕ is incomplete, then the CC Procedure will accept
ϕ after a finite number of steps. As we have seen above, the procedure, given
non-bisimilar pointed models (A, a) and (B, b) of ϕ, always has a child to play
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 15

according to f . For convenience, we can assume that models A and B have no

cycles, so the choice-function never repeats a choice during a process run. If for
every choice of f , the process does not terminate, then we show that (A, w) ∼
(B, w ), reaching a contradiction. Let R =∼ ∪Z, where ∼ is the bisimilarity
relation between the states of A and the states of B, and xZy when for some
choice-function, there is an infinite execution of the procedure, in which y is
a counterpart of x, or x a counterpart of y. If xRy, either (A, x) ∼ (B, y), so
VPA (x) = VPB (y), or xZy, so, again, VPA (x) = VPB (y), since x and y satisfy he
same maximal state. If xRy and xRA x , then if (A, x) ∼ (B, y), immediately
there is some yRB y  so that (A, x ) ∼ (B, y  ); if x is a counterpart of y or y is a
counterpart of x during a non-terminating run, then for every x accessible from
x (the case is symmetric for a y  accessible from y), either x is bisimilar to some
y  accessible from y, or we can alter the choice-function f that the procedure uses
so that x = f (x, y). Since for that altered f , the procedure does not terminate, x
has a counterpart as well. Therefore, the bisimulation conditions are satisfied and
R is a bisimulation. If for every choice-function, the procedure never terminates,
then (A, w) ∼ (B, w ), and we have reached a contradiction. Therefore, there is
a choice-function f that ensures the procedure terminates after a finite number
of steps. We call that number of steps the length of choice-function f . For every
state a, let D(a) = {♦ψ ∈ a} and B(a) = {ψ ∈ a}. Then, 0 ≤ |D(a)| ≤ k1
and 0 ≤ |B(a)| ≤ k2 , where 0 ≤ k1 + k2 ≤ |ϕ| − 1. Notice that according to the
definition of f above, as the process runs, D(a) decreases and B(a) increases —
though, not necessarily strictly.
Lemma 7. Let l ∈ {K4, D4, S4} and let a, b, c be maximal states. If B(a) =
B(b), D(a) = D(b),  th(a) →l ♦th(c), and l th(b) → ♦th(c), then c = a = b
and l = S4.
Proof. See [13]. 

We can safely assume that the procedure never repeats the same choice of
child-state — otherwise, it could continue from the second repetition and shorten
its run. If during an execution, the CC Procedure picks states a, and in a follow-
ing step, a state b, so that B(a) = B(b) and D(a) = D(b), and immediately after
b the procedure picks child-state c, we claim that either the procedure could
pick c right after a without affecting its run, or a and b are consecutive picked
states and after picking c, the procedure terminates. Since c can be a child-state
for a view that has b as parent-state, it satisfies all necessary closure conditions
for l-complete views, so it can appear as a child-state for a view that has a as
parent-state. If l th(a) → ♦th(c), then the procedure can pick c right after a
and terminate immediately; if l th(a) → ♦th(c), but l th(b) → ♦th(c), then
the procedure terminates at c and, by Lemma 7, l = S4 and a = c. If a and b
are not consecutive states, then there is a maximal state a picked after a and
before b, so that B(a ) = B(b) and D(a ) = D(b). Similarly to the above, a = c,
and therefore, a = a — so, the procedure repeated the same child-state choice.
Therefore, a minimal-length choice function can ensure that the CC Procedure
terminates after |ϕ| + 2 steps.
16 A. Achilleos

On the other hand, we prove that if ϕ is complete, then the CC Procedure can
never accept ϕ. For this, we use the following lemmata:

Lemma 8. If a view S is consistent and complete and C(S) = ∅, then

– if l does not have axiom 4 (l = K), then the following formula is consistent:
 
th(p(S)) ∧ ♦th(c) ∧  th(c);
c∈C(S) c∈C(S)

– if l has axiom 4 (l ∈ {K4, D4, S4}), then the following formula is consistent:

th(p(S)) ∧ ♦th(c).
c∈C(S)

Proof. See [13]. 



Lemma 9. Let s be a consistent, and complete state, and for l = K, also a

maximal state; d a maximal state; and ψ a formula. If

– l th(s) → ♦th(d),
– th(d) is not equivalent to th(s), and
– d ∪ {ψ} is consistent,

then th(s) ∧ (¬th(d) ∨ ψ) is consistent.

Proof. See [13]. 



Lemma 10. For a consistent view S that completes itself, for every child c ∈
C(S), if th(p(S)) is complete, then so is th(c).

Proof. See [13]. 



By Lemma 10, all parent-states that appear during a run are complete. If at
some point, the process picks a child-state c and a is the parent-state, then by
Lemma 8, th(a) ∧ ♦th(c) is consistent; since a is complete, l th(a) → ♦th(c).
Therefore, there is no way for the procedure to accept if the input formula is
complete. 


Corollary 5. The completeness problem for K, K4, D4, and S4 is PSPACE-

complete.

Proof. PSPACE-hardness is a consequence of Theorem 5. The CC Procedure is a

non-deterministic polynomial-time algorithm with an oracle from PSPACE. Each
condition that it needs to check is either a closure condition or a condition for
the consistency or provability of formulas of polynomial size with respect to |ϕ|;
therefore, they can be verified either directly or with an oracle from PSPACE.
Thus, the completeness problem for these logics is in coNPPSPACE = PSPACE.  
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 17

6 Variations and Other Considerations

There are several variations one may consider for the completeness problem.
One may define the completeness of a formula in a different way, consider a
different logic, depending on the intended application, or wonder whether we
could attempt a solution to the completeness problem by using Fine’s normal
forms [12].

6.1 Satisfiable and Complete Formulas

It may be more appropriate, depending on the case, to check whether a for-

mula is satisfiable and complete. In this case, if the modal logic does not have
axiom 5, we can simply alter the CC Procedure so that it accepts right away
if the formula is not satisfiable. Therefore, the problem remains in PSPACE; for
PSPACE-completeness, notice that the reduction for Theorem 5 constructs sat-
isfiable formulas. For logics with axiom 5 (and plain Propositional Logic), the
language of satisfiable and complete formulas is US-complete, where a language
U is in US when there is a nondeterministic Turing machine T , so that for every
instance x of U , x ∈ U if and only if T has exactly one accepting computation
path for x4 [20]: UniqueSAT is a complete problem for US and a special case of
this variation of the completeness problem.

6.2 Completeness with Respect to a Model

A natural variation of the completeness problem would be to consider com-

pleteness of a formula over a satisfying model. That is, the problem would ask:
given a formula ϕ and pointed model (M, s), such that M, s |= ϕ, is formula ϕ
complete? For this variation, we are given one of ϕ’s pointed models, so it is a
reasonable expectation that the problem became easier. Note that in many cases,
this problem may be more natural than the original one, as we are now testing
whether the formula completely describes the pointed model (that is, whether
the formula is characteristic for the model). Unfortunately, this variation has
the same complexity as the original completeness problem. We can easily reduce
completeness with respect to a model to plain completeness by dropping the
model from the input. On the other hand, the reduction from provability to
completeness of Sect. 5 still works in this case, as it can easily be adjusted to
additionally provide the satisfying model of the complete formula ϕlP .

4
We note that US is different from UP; for UP, if T has an accepting path for x, then
it is guaranteed that it has a unique accepting path for x.
18 A. Achilleos

6.3 Completeness and Normal Forms for Modal Logic

In [12], Fine introduced normal forms for Modal Logic. The sets FPd are defined
recursively on the depth d, which is a nonnegative integer, and depend on the set
of propositional variables P (we use a variation on the presentation from [21]):
⎧ ⎫
⎨  ⎬
FP0 = p∧ ¬p | S ⊆ P ; and
⎩ ⎭
p∈S p∈S
/
⎧ ⎫
⎨   ⎬
FPd+1 = ϕ0 ∧ ♦ϕ ∧  ϕ | S ⊆ FPd , ϕ0 ∈ FP0 .
⎩ ⎭
ϕ∈S ϕ∈S

For example, formula ϕK 1

P from Sect. 4 is a normal form in FP .

Theorem 7 (from [12]). For every modal formula ϕ of modal depth  at most d,
if ϕ is consistent for K, then there is some S ⊆ FPd , so that K ϕ ↔ S.

Furthermore, as Fine [12] demonstrated, normal forms are mutually exclusive:

no two distinct normal forms from FPd can be true at the same state of a model.
Normal forms are not necessarily complete by our definition (for example, con-
sider p ∧ ♦p ∧ p for P = {p}), but, at least for K, it is not hard to distinguish
the complete ones; by induction on d, ϕ ∈ FPd is complete for K if and only if
md(ϕ) < d. Therefore, for K, the satisfiable and complete formulas are exactly
the ones that are equivalent to such a complete normal form. However, we cannot
use this observation to test formulas for completeness by guessing a complete
normal form and verifying that it is equivalent to our input formula, as normal
forms can be of very large size: |FP0 | = 2|P | ; |FPd+1 | = |P | · 2|FP | ; and if ψ ∈ FPd ,
d

|ψ| can be up to |P | + 2|FPd−1 |. We would be guaranteed a normal form of rea-

sonable (that is, polynomial w.r.to |ϕ|) size to compare to ϕ only if ϕ uses a
small (logarithmic with respect to |ϕ|) number of variables and its modal depth
is very small compared to |ϕ| (that is, md(ϕ) = O(log∗ (|ϕ|))).

6.4 Completeness up to Depth

Fine’s normal forms [12] can inspire us to consider a relaxation of the definition of
completeness. We call a formula ϕ complete up to its depth for a logic l exactly
when for every formula ψ ∈ L(P (ϕ)) of modal depth at most md(ϕ), either
l ϕ → ψ or l ϕ → ¬ψ. Immediately from Theorem 7:

Lemma 11. All normal forms are complete up to their depths.

Lemma 12. Formula ϕ is satisfiable and complete up to its depth for logic l if
md(ϕ)
and only if it is equivalent in l to a normal form from FP .

Proof. From Theorem 7, if ϕ is satisfiable, then it is equivalent to some S,
md(ϕ)
where S ⊆ FP , but if it is also complete up to its depth, then it can derive a
 The Completeness Problem for Modal Logic 19

 
the normal form ψ ∈ S; so, l ϕ → ψ, but also l ψ → S and S is equivalent
md(ϕ)
to ϕ. For the other direction, notice that every normal form in FP is either
complete or has the same modal depth as ϕ, so by Lemma 11, if ϕ is equivalent
to a normal form, in the first case it is complete and in the second case it is
complete up to its depth.
Therefore, all modal logics have formulas that are complete up to their depth.
dfor anyfinite set of propositional variables P and d ≥ 0, we can define
In fact,
ϕdP = i=0 i P , which is equivalent in T and D to a normal form (by induc-
tion on d). Then, we can use a reduction similar to the one from the proof of
Theorem 5 to prove that for every modal logic, completeness up to depth is as
hard as provability.
Proposition 4. For any complexity class C and logic l, if l-provability is
C-hard, then completeness up to depth is C-hard.
Proof. The proof is similar to that of Theorem 5 and can be found in [13]. 

We demonstrate that this variation of the completeness problem is in PSPACE
when the logic is K; it seems plausible that one can follow similar approaches
that use normal forms for the remaining modal logics.
Proposition 5. A formula ϕ is complete up to its depth for K if and only if
ϕ ∧ md(ϕ)+1 ⊥ is complete for K.
Proof. Let ψ ∈ FPd be a normal form. Then, ψ ∧ d+1 ⊥ is equivalent in K to
ψ +1 ∈ FPd+1 , which is ψ after we replace all ♦ψ  in ψ by ♦(ψ  ∧ ⊥), where
ψ  ∈ FP0 . Notice that ψ1 , ψ2 ∈ FPd are distinct normal forms if and only if
ψ1+1 , ψ2+1 are distinct normal forms in FPr for every r > d. So, ϕ is complete
up to its depth for K if and only if ϕ ∧ md(ϕ)+1 ⊥ is complete for K. 


6.5 More Logics

There is more to Modal Logic— and more modal logics,— so, perhaps, there is
also more to discover about the completeness problem. We based the decision
procedure for the completeness problem for each logic on a decision procedure for
satisfiability. We distinguished two cases, depending on the logic’s satisfiability-
testing procedures.
– If the logic has axiom 5, then to test satisfiability we guess a small model and
we use model checking to verify that the model satisfies the formula. This
procedure uses the small model property of these logics (Corollary 1). To
test for completeness, we guess two small models; we verify that they satisfy
the formula and that they are non-bisimilar. We could try to use a similar
approach for another logic based on a decision procedure for satisfiability
based on a small model property (for, perhaps, another meaning for “small”).
To do so successfully, a small model property may not suffice. We need to first
demonstrate that for this logic, a formula that is satisfiable and incomplete
has two small non-bisimilar models.
Another random document with
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that her universe would always revolve about him, that there would
always be a mysterious potency in the mere sound of his voice, or
touch of his hand, where she was concerned.
But discuss her with Sylvia and Aunt Flora, and kindly and with big-
brotherly superiority offer her a “plan,” a plan to accept his name and
his protection, simply because she was so apparently incapable of
taking care of herself! Gabrielle suffocated at the thought. No, David
couldn’t be David and do that.
In the ten days that elapsed before his arrival at Wastewater she
alternated between such violent extremes of feeling, and lay awake
pondering, imagining, and analyzing the situation so constantly at
night that she was genuinely exhausted when the afternoon of his
coming came at last.
There were moments when she felt she could not see him, dared not
face him. There were times when she longed for his arrival, and to
assure herself with a first glance that all this nervous anticipation
was her own ridiculous imagining, and that no thought of it had ever
crossed his mind!
When he finally came Gay was in the garden. For spring had come
to Wastewater, and David’s fancy of finding her before a fire in the
sitting room had been outdated by two full weeks of sunshine. There
was fresh green grass sprouting about the old wall, there were daisy-
starred stretches of it under the massed blossoms of the fruit trees;
gracious shadows lay long and sweet everywhere over new green
leaves; the willows were jade fountains of foliage, the maples
uncurling moist little red and gold tendrils, and the lilacs were rustling
columns of clean new leafage and plumy blossom. The last of the
frost had melted from the newly turned sods; gulls were walking
about, pulling at worms, and spring sunset lay over the broad, gently
heaving surface of an opal sea.
David had taken his bags upstairs, greeted his aunt, who was
knitting in the sitting room, but without the fire, and had spent
perhaps ten restless and excited minutes in outward conversation
and in inner excitement. Where was Gay? When would the door
handle turn and the plainly gowned girl come in, with the smile
flashing into her star-sapphire eyes when she saw him, and the
beautiful hand she extended so quaintly, so demurely enhanced by
the transparent white cuff? David was so shaken by a strange
emotion at the thought that every moment was bringing their meeting
closer, so confused by the undercurrent of his thoughts—the
undercurrent that would dwell upon her greeting, and his introduction
of all he had to say to her—that he could hardly hear what his aunt
was saying. When he did finally escape to search for Gay, and when
Hedda told him that she was in the garden, he found himself
standing quite still in the side passage, with his heart thundering, and
his senses swimming, and an actual unwillingness upon him, after all
these waiting days and weeks, to make real the dream that he had
cherished so long.
There she was, about the western turn of the house, half walking
and half running, with the puppy sometimes keeping his feet and
sometimes swung dizzily in the air on the rope that Gabrielle was
carrying and the little dog biting in a frenzy of joy. There was warm
sweet light in the garden at five o’clock, the day had been balmy
enough to make cooler airs at its close almost a relief.
Pleasant domestic sounds in the barnyard were all about: clucks and
moos, John whistling, and the stamping of big horses’ feet on distant
floors. The scent of violets and syringa, of lilacs and new grass, of
damply turned, sun-warmed earth was like a delicious sharp and
heady ether in the air.
David joined the girl just as she and the dog were turning down a
rambling sort of back road that led toward the sea; Gabrielle turned,
and although indeed she smiled, he saw that she was an older and a
soberer Gabrielle than the little schoolgirl of the Christmas holidays.
They walked the quarter mile to the shore deep in a conversation he
had not anticipated; she talked of her mother, whose life was a
question only of days now, and made one allusion to the deeper
cause of pain to herself.
“My finding out about myself—about my mother’s never having been
married, David—has made a sort of change in everything to me,”
she said, unemotionally. “I seem to feel now that I must do
something—that it is more than ever my duty to do something to
make my own place in life and stand upon my own feet. That’s the
only way that I can ever be happy, and I will be happy so, believe
me!” she added, nervously intercepting an interruption from him.
“Doctor Ensicoe, from Crowchester, says that my mother will not
outlive the month. And then I mean to write to the nuns in Boston
and stay with them until I find something that I can do. I know Aunt
Flora will help me, for indeed she offered to most generously, and,
while I must—I will let her. She was very kind about it all,” Gabrielle
added, reaching safer waters now, and so speaking more quietly.
“We have never spoken of it except at that one time. I said to her
quite suddenly, one night when we were going up to my mother’s
room—I’d had it terribly on my mind, of course, ‘Aunt Flora, answer
me one question. There would be no use in my attempting to trace
Charpentier, my father, would there? There is no record of that
marriage, is there? That is the real reason for all the mystery and
secrecy, isn’t it?’ And she turned very pale,” went on Gay, “and
answered, ‘Yes.’ We never alluded to it again, although many times
since she has told me that Sylvia would always take care of me—
that I must not worry!” And catching a sudden look of determination
and interest in David’s face Gay went on hurriedly, “But indeed I
don’t worry, I shall get along splendidly and make you all proud of
me!”
A sensation of pity so sudden and acute as to dry his mouth and
press like a pain behind his eyes silenced David for a moment. Then
he said:
“But you are very young, Gay, and inexperienced, to face all the
ugliness and coldness of the world. Suppose,” David added,
conscious suddenly of the quickened beat of his heart, “there was
some other plan that eased, or helped to ease, all those worries of
yours——?”
“Oh, my God,” Gay prayed, in a very panic of fear. “Oh, David,” she
cried, in the deeps of her being, “spare me! Oh, God, don’t let him
mean that he is going to ask me to marry him. Oh, no—no—no!”
Aloud she said nothing. They were on the sweet, grassy cliffs above
the sea, now, and Gay was looking out across the level stretches of
the peaceful water, over which shone the last of the long day’s light.
She was so beautiful, as she stood there, that for a moment David
was content to look at her and tell himself that he had not
remembered how lovely she was. Loose delicate tendrils of her
tawny hair were blowing about her white temples; there was a
delicate creamy glow on her warm, colourless skin, her great eyes
seemed to give forth a starry shimmer of their own. In the fine hands,
encircled at the wrists, as David had anticipated they would be, by
transparent white cuffs, she held the restless puppy against the
young curve of her breast; in the old garden and the spring sunset
she looked like a slender, serious impersonation of Memory or
Poetry, or of some mythical young goddess, wandering under the
great trees.
But it was not only the physical beauty that he saw. He saw in her
too the dearly companionable girl of the past mid-winter, whose
husky, sweet laughter had rung out over the card table, whose eager
helpful interest had made bright so many a dark sleety morning in
the upstairs studio, when the oil stove slowly warmed the air and
scented it with hot metal and kerosene vapours. He saw her
buttoning on the big coat, tramping through snowy woods at his side,
with her hands deep in her pockets, and her bright face glowing like
a rose. And a first little chilling fear crept over his bright dream;
suppose—suppose she was not for him, after all?
“Gabrielle,” he said, suddenly, his face reddening and his voice
shaking a little, “will you let me tell you what I planned for you and for
me?”
She gave him an agonized half glance, nodded, and said some
indistinguishable word of assent as she turned away.
“I was wondering——” David began. And suddenly it seemed all to
go flat and dull. He felt himself to have no business to be putting it to
her this way, this half-laughing, half-sympathetic, wholly kind and
comfortable way. The smooth phrases of his imaginings vanished in
air, he was merely a rather stupid man of thirty-one, bungling the
most delicate thing in all the world. It was too late to stop. The girl’s
face was crimson, but she had turned toward him gravely and
expectantly, and was looking at him steadily and bravely.
“This was my idea,” David began again, miserably. “I—I felt—I knew
that you were most unhappy, and that you felt lonely and as if you
were wasting time here, and yet doubtful about making a start
elsewhere. And it occurred to me——” He tried his best at this point
to recapture the affectionate whimsically practical note that these
words had always had in anticipation, but do what he would they
sounded stupidly patronizing and heavy. “It occurred to me,” he said
again, “that you and I are somewhat in the same boat. We’re
Flemings, yet we don’t truly belong at Wastewater—that belongs to
Sylvia now! And wouldn’t it be a very delightful thing for you and me
to give them all a surprise and just take ourselves out of their way,
once and for all?”
She heard him so far. Then she stopped him with a sudden
backward movement of her head, and answered quietly, with a
downward glance at the puppy’s little snuggled form:
“Thank you, David. But you must see that I can’t—I can’t do that! But
thank you very much.”
David was honestly taken aback. Not that he had expected her to fall
into his arms—he did not know just what he had expected her to do.
But certainly not this! He had perhaps imagined her beautiful and
irradiating smile turned toward him, heard a rich cadence half of
reproach and half of pleasure in her voice as she said, something
like, “David Fleming! Are you asking me to marry you?”
This actuality was all confusing and different from the plan, and his
own feelings were disconcertingly different, too. The girl looked
unmistakably hurt and humiliated by what he had said, which was
astonishing enough. But even more astonishing was his own sudden
conviction that she had reason to seem so. What was he saying to
her, anyway? After all, her love affair was the most important thing in
all a girl’s life! It was not something to be flung at her unexpectedly,
between one’s arrival after weeks—after months of absence—and a
family dinner!
A half-analyzed consciousness of being wrong, combined with a
general confusion of mind and senses, was strong upon David as he
blundered on:
“I may be surprising you, Gay. You see, I’ve been thinking about all
this for a long time! You can certainly say, ‘This is so sudden,’ in the
good old-fashioned manner, if you want to,” added David, nervously,
hoping to win back his humorous, comprehending little companion of
January with his anxious and appealing laugh.
But Gay did not laugh.
“I do appreciate your taking my problems so much to heart, David,”
she said, turning to pace staidly back through the twilight greenness
and sweetness toward the house. “But I really blame myself a good
deal for being such a baby! I’ve been selfishly dwelling upon my
troubles, and acting as if no girl ever had them to face before, and of
course it has worried you and Aunt Flora and Sylvia. But that’s over
now, and I want you to know that I do appreciate your sympathy, and
your having thought out this way of escape for me, and having
planned it all with Sylvia.”
“As a matter of fact,” David interposed, eagerly, hoping that matters
might yet adjust themselves, “Sylvia’s letter to me, asking to be set
entirely free of any real or imaginary understanding between us,
crossed my letter to her saying that I—had other plans in mind.”
He looked at Gabrielle hopefully with the words; perhaps when she
knew how completely above-board and deliberated the step had
been she would begin to see it in his light. But Gay merely reddened
the more deeply, if that were possible, and said hastily and
uncomfortably:
“I see. And I do thank you! And I ask you—I beg you—for the little
time I am at Wastewater,” she added, feverishly, as the vertigo of
shame and confusion that had been almost nauseating her
threatened to engulf her in a humiliating burst of tears, “please never
to say anything like this to me again! Please——! There are reasons
——” Gay fought on desperately, feeling with terror that tears might
end in his arms, and that utter capitulation on his own kindly
humorous terms must follow such a break-down, “there are reasons
why it kills me to have you talk so! I beg you, David, to consider it all
settled—all over——”
“Why, of course I will!” David said, in a cold, quiet voice that braced
her like a plunge into icy waters. “I’m only sorry to distress you,” he
added, formally. “I had been thinking about it with a great deal of
pleasure, and I thought you might. I’m sorry. We’ll never speak of it
again.”
Then they were at the side door, and Gay escaped into the gloomy
dark hallway, and fled red-cheeked and panting to her room, where
she could cry, rage, shake herself, walk the floor, and analyse the
whole situation unobserved.
“Oh, you fool!” she said, scornfully, to her panting image in the
mirror. “You hysterical schoolgirl! Oh, how I hate him and his plans
for me!” she gritted, through shut teeth. “And I hate Sylvia worse! I
hate them all. He thought I would die of joy—he knows better now.
Oh, insulting! He wouldn’t have done that to Sylvia or one of the
Montallen girls! But it didn’t matter with me—Aunt Lily’s daughter,
with no father to stand up for me. And it isn’t my fault I haven’t a
father,” Gay said, pitifully, half aloud, leaning her elbows on the
bureau, and beginning to cry into her hands; “it isn’t my fault that I’m
all alone in the world!”
And again she flung herself on the bed, and her whole form was
racked and shaken by the violence of her weeping.
“He’ll see my red eyes at dinner and think it’s for him,” she broke off,
savagely, sitting up in the early dark and reaching for the scrambling
and mystified puppy, who was going upon a whimpering tour of
investigation among the pillows. Gay dried her eyes upon his downy
little back, lighted her lamp, and soused her eyes with cold water.
Half an hour later she went down to dinner, quite restored to calm
and ready to take a cheerful part in the conversation. But she would
not share the sitting room with her aunt and David after dinner.
She said, with that touch of new maturity and decision that David
found so touching and so amusing in little Gabrielle, that she would
go up and sit with her mother, thus releasing Margret for an hour or
two below stairs.
The room seemed to become blank, however, when she had gone
quietly away, and David was surprised to find that the thought of her
had become so habitual with him in the last few weeks that he was
thinking of her still, as steadily as if that strange hour in the garden
were the dream, and the Gay of his plan, the gracious Gay who had
so many, many times promised him, in his thoughts, to marry him,
were the reality.
He found himself restlessly making excuses to follow her upstairs.
Was Aunt Flora going up to see Aunt Lily to-night? Later, Flora said,
sombrely. Was it quite safe for Gabrielle up there alone with the
invalid? Oh, quite. Poor Lily had not the strength of a baby, now.
After an endless time they went upstairs, to find that Margret had just
come up, and Gay was ready to plead fatigue and slip away to bed.
Aunt Lily was a mere colourless slip of flesh and blood, quiet upon
smooth pillows now, with her gray hair brushed and pinned up neatly.
Gay was kneeling beside her in the orderly, lamp-lighted room when
David went in, with one of her beautiful hands clasping the yellowed
old lifeless fingers. She got to her feet with no sign of
embarrassment, and in another two minutes had disappeared for the
night.
David saw a light in her transom, half an hour later, when he went to
his room. She was probably quietly reading, he thought; discomfited,
preferring the society of books to his own, after what had transpired
this afternoon.
He felt disappointed and humiliated, he missed the thrilling dream
that had kept him company for so long, and for a day or two he
managed to persuade himself that it was because Gay had failed
him. She had proved very much less satisfying than his thoughts of
her; he had unconsciously been idealizing her all this time. He had
thought of her as gracious, merry, provocative, responsive, and she
had proved to be merely embarrassed and awkward.
“Well!” he said, going off to sleep, “That’s over—no harm done!” But
he could not dismiss it. Again he said, almost aloud; “That’s over. No
harm done!”
 CHAPTER XIII
He plunged, the next morning, into work, going off to Keyport
immediately after breakfast and returning late in the afternoon. The
day was exquisite beyond words, the sea satiny blue, and there was
real summer warmth in the sweet spring stillness of the air. David
saw Gabrielle in the garden when he came back, and took his
painting gear upstairs, determined not to make himself ridiculous in
her eyes again. But a power stronger than himself immediately took
him downstairs again. He walked, with an air of strolling, to the
hollies, where she had been. But she was gone.
David now felt irrationally and without analysis that he must see her,
and at once. He had nothing to say to her, and if he had, he might
have waited until dinner-time brought them together. But he felt like a
lost child, not seeing that figure in blue gingham—his eyes searched
for it hungrily, swept each new vista; he felt actually sick with
disappointment when moment after moment went by and there was
no sign of her down the lane, on the cliff road, or among the rocks.
He thought of nothing but the finding of her; Gabrielle in her blue
gingham seated by a pool, running along with Ben—just to find her
——
She came into the sitting room just before dinner, and David, who
was actually exhausted from the monotonous hammering of
thoughts about only her, dared not trust himself to look up as she
slipped into her chair. He was glancing over a new Atlantic; he
pretended that he had not heard Gay enter.
“It was young Doctor Ensicoe, the son,” said Gabrielle’s voice,
suddenly, quietly in the silence, to Aunt Flora. “I took him upstairs.
He says to watch, and let his father know if there seems to be any
pain or restlessness.”
If the words had been so many bombs they could scarcely have had
a more extraordinary effect upon David. He felt as if his heart had
given a great plunge, stopped short, raced on again madly; he felt as
if his mouth and throat were dry, a sort of weakness and vertigo that
were yet exquisitely pleasant seized him.
It was impossible for him to speak to this girl, or to look up, while this
state of affairs lasted. If she saw that he was nervous and unlike
himself, she must think what she would——! David could only try to
get a grip upon soul and body, and betray himself as little as
possible.
This moment was the end of all peace for him. For although he did
indeed presently hand his aunt the magazine with some brief
comment, and although dinner and the evening proceeded as usual,
he was beginning to suspect that his whole life had been changed
now, mysteriously changed—partly perhaps his own doing, through
that long-cherished dream of an imaginary scene with an imaginary
Gabrielle.
But no matter how it had come about. The blazing and inescapable
truth was that there was nothing else in the world for him but this
quiet, slender, serious, tawny-headed girl. He did not know what he
felt toward her, or whether the wild confusion of his senses might be
called anything so reasonable as feeling; she was simply in the
world, she was sitting in chairs, opening doors, speaking in that
incredibly thrilling voice, raising those extraordinary eyes—that was
enough.
David had never before been really in love. But he had thought he
loved Sylvia, and he did not put in that same category his feeling for
Gabrielle. This was nothing that could be classified or regulated;
regulate it, indeed, David thought, with an almost audible groan
when he came to this word in his thoughts; as well regulate raging
flames or rushing waters!
It devoured him with fever. He was unable to eat for excitement,
never happy one instant out of Gabrielle’s company, acutely
miserable when in it. He lay awake in the warm spring nights thinking
of what he had said to her during the past day, and as her looks and
words in reply—such quiet words, such rare looks!—came back
before his vision, he would feel his heart stop, and his breath would
fail him with sheer fear and terror and hope and agony of doubt.
He sat at breakfast, pushing about the toast that was so much chalk
and plaster to his palate, scalding himself with his coffee one
morning, forgetting it entirely the next. His eyes never left Gabrielle.
She would glance up, passing him perhaps the omelette that he
would not even see, much less taste, and at his awkward laugh,
muttered words, and hastily averted look she would perhaps colour
confusedly. If she directed a simple question to him, he found it
maddeningly difficult to answer.
“I beg pardon——?” He had to leave the sentence hanging rawly. He
could not say her name.
“I asked you: did Margret say anything about medicines?”
“I—I—you mean on Sunday——?”
“No,” Gay would say, astonished at his manner. “I mean this
morning, five minutes ago.”
“Oh, I see—I see! Did—who? What?”
“Never mind. I’ll ask her,” Gay would finish, deciding that David must
be absolutely absorbed in the picture he was painting. David would
watch her go from the room, gracious, sweet, beautiful in her cotton
gown. All the spring seemed only a setting for her loveliness, the
lilacs and the blue sky, the sunshine and the drifting snow of fruit
blossoms.
It was this wonderful, this incomparable woman, he would remind
himself scathingly, that he had affronted with his insultingly casual
offer of marriage a week ago. No wonder the girl had put a definite
distance between them since! But he knew he would ask her again,
simply because there was no other conceivable thing for him to do.
His dream of the little farmhouse in Keyport returned now, but it was
a dream infinitely enhanced, and haloed by all the colours of the
rainbow. David could hardly bear the poignant sweetness of the
thought of Gay as his wife; Gay perhaps chatting over a late
breakfast on the porch with him; Gay travelling with him, and looking
over a steamer rail as the blue mountains of Sicily or the green
shores of the Isle of Wight slowly formed themselves on the horizon.
Once, when he was quietly painting, the thought of Gay with a child
in her arms came to him suddenly, and David felt his eyes sting and
the palms of his hands suddenly moist.
She was leagues away from him now, never with him when she
could avoid it, never alone with him at all. She was apparently living
a life of her own, coming and going gently and pleasantly, answering,
listening, but no longer the Gabrielle he had known a few months
ago.
And ten days after his return she was still further removed by her
mother’s death. Lily died quite peacefully one sweet May evening,
after an afternoon when she had seemed more normal than for
years. She had had for some days the idea that Gabrielle was her
old nurse, Miss Rosecrans, and made all her few demands of the girl
under that name. But at the very end, when Gabrielle was kneeling
beside her, with sorrowful, tear-brimmed eyes fixed upon the
yellowed little sunken face, Lily opened her eyes, fixed them
affectionately upon Flora, and asked feebly:
“Is this big girl my baby, Flo?”
“This is Gabrielle, Lily,” Flora said, clearing her throat.
Lily smiled with ineffable satisfaction at Gabrielle, and said
contentedly:
“Gabrielle. Isn’t it a pretty name? Do you like it? Did Roger like it?”
“I am going to say some prayers, Mother,” Gabrielle said, smiling
with wet cheeks, and with the salt taste of her own tears in her
mouth. Lily opened her eyes briefly, for the last time.
“Ah, I wish you would!” she said, with a smile and a deep sigh. And
she never moved or spoke again.
Two days later she was buried in the little plot within Wastewater’s
wide walls; the doctor, Flora weeping on David’s arm, Gay standing
straight and alone, and the awestruck maids were all her little funeral
train. It was Flora who seemed to feel the loss most, and with
surprising force; she seemed broken and aged, and it was for
Gabrielle to comfort her.
“I never supposed it would be so,” Flora repeated, over and over.
“That I would be the last—that Will and Roger and Lily would all be
gone before me!”
She would not stay in bed; Flora did not belong to the generation
that can eat and read and idle comfortably under covers. She was up
at her usual hour upon every one of the sweet, warm fragrant
mornings, when dawn crept in across the sea and the wet garden
sent up a very bouquet of perfumes through the open upstairs
windows. But she was silent and sad, and when Sylvia’s long-
awaited happy Commencement came, Flora was really too ill to go,
although she refused to concede to herself the luxury even of one
hour upon a couch, or the satisfaction of a single visit from the
doctor. David went up alone to the Commencement, and brought
Sylvia back with him. It was on that last day of her college life, a day
of flowers and white gowns, crowds, music, laughter, and tears, that
Sylvia found time to say to him pleadingly:
“David dear, my letter didn’t hurt you terribly?”
“I’d had something of the same feeling myself, you know,” he
reminded her. “Our letters crossed. You remember I said just what
you did, that it must either be an engagement or nothing, and that I
knew you would prefer it to be nothing just at this time.”
“Oh, yes!” responded Sylvia, narrowing her eyes, and speaking a
little vaguely. And David saw that while her letter, a letter written in a
charmingly frank fashion, and asking please—please to be free from
any engagement to him for a little while, had made a romantic sort of
impression upon her mind, his had scarcely registered upon her
consciousness at all. In other words, Sylvia was her own whole world
just at the moment, and the only things that mattered were her own
moods, her own ideas, her own individual desires.
The highly distinguished and honourable conclusion of her school
days, her youth, her beauty, her sense of closely impending power
could not but be deliciously stimulating to a nature like Sylvia’s. She
and David stopped two nights in Boston, Sylvia with a schoolmate,
David at a hotel, met on the languid, warm spring mornings to
explore the quiet shops and to discuss various plans for Wastewater:
electric lighting for Wastewater, a furnace for Wastewater, a hot-
water system for Wastewater. There was a delightful new, red, slim
checkbook; there was an imposing balance at the bank. Sylvia
bought herself one or two charming frocks as a sort of promissory
note of the financial independence that was so soon to be, and she
did not forget a broad lacy black hat for dear little Gabrielle, who had
had such a sad year, and a lacy thin black afternoon gown to match
it.
Gabrielle, when they reached Wastewater, met them all in white, and
Sylvia gave her a warm kiss and murmured just the right phrase of
sympathy as they went upstairs to find her mother. The gardens
were exquisite in early June bloom; the whole house smelled of
roses and summer weather; birds were flashing in and out of the
cherry trees; John was on his knees beside the strawberry bed.
But Flora sat upstairs before the cold grate, with the windows shut,
and her first words to Sylvia were broken by tears. Sylvia comforted
her with a sort of loving impatience in her voice.
“Mamma, darling! Is this reasonable! Isn’t it after all a blessed
solution for poor little Aunt Lily?”
“But I never thought it would be so!” Flora faltered, blowing her nose,
sniffling, straightening her glasses with all the unlovely awkwardness
of hard-fought grief. And immediately she regained her composure,
almost with a sort of shame, and David could say truthfully to Sylvia
a little later, when the three young persons were wandering through
the garden, that Sylvia had done her mother good already.
Sylvia indeed did them all good; she was delighted with everything,
appreciative and pleasant with the maids, and sisterly in her manner
toward Gabrielle. David found her sensible and clever in the
business conferences they had on the dreamy summer mornings in
the little office downstairs, where perhaps the first mistress of
Wastewater had transacted her business also, more than a hundred
years before—the business of superintending stores and soap-
making, weaving and dyeing, bartering in cocks and geese and the
selling of lambs. Sylvia waived all unnecessary matters, was brightly
receptive, and in every way businesslike and yet confident in David’s
judgment. Later she would debate with John about fruit, with Trude
about preserving, with Daisy about tablecloths, all in her own
pleasantly unhesitating yet considerate manner. It was evident that
she would assume her responsibilities thoroughly, yet with no jarring
and disrupting of the accustomed course of things.
In one of the late evenings when Sylvia came into Gay’s room to
brush her hair and to gossip, Gay broached her plan of going to a
Boston convent as soon as the hot weather should be over, to look
about her and find some sort of work. Sylvia listened thoughtfully and
looked up with a kindly smile.
“You’d be happier so, Gabrielle?”
“I think so,” Gay answered.
“What is it?” Sylvia questioned, kindly. “Wastewater too lonely?”
Gabrielle did not answer immediately, except by a quick shake of her
head. Presently she said, a little thickly:
“No, I love Wastewater more than any other place in the world.”
“Well,” said Sylvia, musing, “if you must try your wings, by all means
try them! Be sure we’ll all be interested in making it a success, Gay.
Mamma and I may go abroad in the fall—it isn’t definite, of course,
but I think she would like it, if all my various anchors here can be
managed without me.”
Gabrielle had been burning, fearing, hating to ask it; she found
herself saying now, with a little unconquerable incoherence:
“Then you and David——?”
“David and I,” answered Sylvia, with a quick, mysterious smile, “are
quite the best friends in the world!”
Did she know? David, in asking her to free him, had told her how
much? Gay looked at her cousin through the mirror, and her face
blazed. But Sylvia, curling the end of her long braid thoughtfully
about her finger, was unsuspicious. Gay wondered if she could be
acting.
“I don’t mind telling you, dear,” said Sylvia, presently, “that I wrote
David in the spring, feeling that our understanding was an injustice to
us both, and asked him to be just my good friend—my best friend,”
Sylvia interrupted herself to say, with a little emotion, “for to me he is
the finest man in the world!—for a little while longer. And as he has
been my obedient knight ever since I was a little curly-headed
despot in short frocks, of course he obeyed me,” she ended, with a
little whimsical glance and smile. And now, having gotten to her feet,
and come over to the mirror, she laid one arm affectionately about
Gabrielle’s shoulder. “I love that bright thick hair of yours,” Sylvia
said.
Suddenly Gabrielle felt young, crude, hateful because she did not
adore Sylvia, contemptible because she suffered in seeing that this
other girl’s position and happy destiny it was to be always admired,
always superb. Why couldn’t she—why couldn’t she school herself to
think of Sylvia as rich and beautiful and adored, and married to
David, and mistress of Wastewater? Weren’t there other men, other
fortunes, other friends to be won? Gay laid Sylvia’s smooth hand
against her cheek, and said like a penitent child:
“You’re awfully good! I am grateful to you.”
“That’s right!” Sylvia said, laughing. And she went upon her serene
way, to brush her teeth and open her windows and jump into bed
with her book of essays, always adequate and always sweet.
Gabrielle determined, as she usually determined at night, to begin
again to-morrow, to force herself to meet Sylvia’s friendship and
affection, David’s friendship and affection, with what was only, after
all, a normal, natural response. Why must she tremble, suspect,
watch, turn red and turn white in this maddening and idiotic manner,
when these two older and infinitely superior persons only wanted her
to be pleasant, natural, friendly, as they were? The younger girl felt
as if she were living over a powder magazine; at David’s most casual
word her throat would thicken, and her words become either
incredibly foolish or stupidly heavy; and when he and Sylvia were
together and out of her hearing, her soul and mind were in a tumult
beside which actual bodily pain would have been a relief.
When they cheerfully asked her to join them on their way down for
an afternoon of idling or reading on the shore, Gay put herself—as
she furiously felt—in a ridiculous position by gruffly refusing. The
two, and Aunt Flora, spectacled and armed with a book, would look
at her in astonishment.
“Oh, if Aunt Flora’s going——” Gay might stammer, in her
embarrassment using the very phrase she meant not to use. And
Sylvia’s pretty mouth would twitch at the corners, and she would
exchange a demure look with David, as if to say—Gabrielle fancied
—“Isn’t she a deliciously gauche little creature? She is trying to clear
the tracks for our affair!”
If, on the other hand, Gabrielle came innocently from half an hour
among the sweet warmth and flying colour and the buzzing of bees
about the sweet-pea vines, to meet David and Sylvia in the path, she
might hear Sylvia say lightly and good-temperedly—and might lie
awake in the nights remembering it with a thumping heart and
cheeks hot with shame!—“Not now, David. We can discuss this
later!”
On a certain burning July day, several weeks after Sylvia’s
homecoming, all four Flemings had planned to drive into
Crowchester in the new car, for some shopping. Sylvia’s birthday
was but a week ahead, and she was to have a house party for the
event. To-day she had a neat list: gimp, enamel, candles, glue,
lemonade glasses, Japanese lanterns? (with a question mark) and
charcoal? (with another). For there were to be a beach picnic and a
garden fête next week.
Just before they started, however, Gay begged to be excused. She
was feeling the heat of the day, she said, and wanted to spend the
afternoon quietly down on the shore with her Italian grammar.
Instantly, without premeditation, David felt himself growing excited
again—here was his chance at last for a talk alone with her; a
chance that the last few weeks had not afforded him before. The
sudden hope of it put him almost into a betraying confusion of
excuses; but Sylvia, dismissing him amiably, fancied she knew the
cause—and an entirely different cause—of his defection.
For David was in no mood to dance attendance upon his pretty elder
cousin this particular afternoon. He had driven the new car down
from Boston the week before with real enjoyment; it was a beautiful
car, and David, who was not after all an experienced driver, was
rather proud of his safe handling of it. But since it had been at
Wastewater Sylvia had shown a strong preference for Walker’s
driving. Walker was a nice young fellow of perhaps nineteen, a
newcomer, who was to act as chauffeur and to help John with
errands, and perhaps in September, when the road was less used, to
teach Sylvia to drive.
For some obscure reason it angered David to have to sit idle beside
the pleasantly youthful and amiable Walker and hear Sylvia’s clear-
cut directions. He would rather, he thought ungraciously, he would
far rather walk.
And to-day, when Gabrielle was graciously excused by Sylvia, he
determined to stay at home, too. Of course this might mean that
Aunt Flora would also stay, David reflected, to walk up and down
above the sea, leaning upon his arm in her new feebleness and
sadness.
But for once Aunt Flora made no sign of abandoning the trip, and
although Sylvia looked at him steadily, she also offered no
objections. David could hardly believe that he was actually free, after
these crowded weeks, to walk after Gabrielle through the garden,
with no prospect of an immediate interruption.
His heart beat with a quite disproportionate emotion. If any one had
told David Fleming a few weeks ago that the chance to follow his
lonely little cousin down to the shore and to have a few minutes of
talk alone with her would have made his temples hammer and his
breath come quick with sheer emotion, he might have laughed.
But he was shaking to-day, and there was a drumming in his ears.
Since Sylvia’s return he had had no such opportunity for a talk.
Gabrielle was down in a favourite cranny of the great rocks; the blue
tides swelling at her feet. David saw her black hat first, flung down
on the strip of beach, then the slender white-shod feet, braced
against a boulder, and then the white figure, with the tawny head
bent over a book.
It was shady here, for this particular group of gray water-worn stones
faced east, and the cliff was at her back. But there was a soft
shimmer of light even in the shadow, and across the rocks above
and behind her head the reflected sunshine on the sea ran in little
unceasing ripples of brightness. She started as David came across
the strand, and put her hand to her heart with a quite simple gesture
of surprise.
“David, I thought you went with Sylvia!”
“Too hot,” he answered, briefly, flinging himself down at her feet and
falling into contemplation of a weed-fringed pool that was patiently
awaiting the tide. The water brimmed it, and grasses opened and
moved mysteriously, showing exquisite colours as they spread. The
ebb emptied it again, and the ribbons of grass lay lifeless against the
wet and twinkling mosaic of life that coated the rocks. A steamer
going by like a toy boat on the blue water ten miles away sent out a
mild little plume of sound.
“‘Mia sorella ha una casa,’” David stated, with a careless glance at
the book. “I had three Italian lessons once, and I know that!”
Gabrielle laughed, a little fluttered laugh, and extended to him a
white hand and a stout volume, held title out.
“‘Anna Karenina,’” David read aloud, with a reproachful look. “Oh,
you Gay deceiver!”
He had sometimes called her that in her babyhood, years ago, and
he fancied there was a little softening shine, like a flurry of wind on
gray water, in her eyes when she heard it now. But she gave no
other sign.
“Is it the first time you have read it?” David asked, conventionally,
wondering where his dear, confident companion of the January days
had gone, and whether this new dignity and aloofness in Gabrielle
were only a passing effect of sorrow, and of the displeasure his most