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Concept
Logic translation
Summary
Logic translation is the process of representing a text in the formal language of a logical system. If the original text is formulated in ordinary language then the term natural language formalization is often used. An example is the translation of the English sentence "some men are bald" into first-order logic as . The purpose is to reveal the logical structure of arguments. This makes it possible to use the precise rules of formal logic to assess whether these arguments are correct. It can also guide reasoning by arriving at new conclusions.
Many of the difficulties of the process are caused by vague or ambiguous expressions in natural language. For example, the English word "is" can mean that something exists, that it is identical to something else, or that it has a certain property. This contrasts with the precise nature of formal logic, which avoids such ambiguities. Natural language formalization is relevant to various fields in the sciences and humanities. Some theorists claim that it plays a key role for logic in general since it is needed to establish a link between many forms of reasoning and abstract logical systems. The use of informal logic is an alternative to formalization since it analyzes the cogency of ordinary language arguments in their original form. Natural language formalization is distinguished from logic translations that convert formulas from one logical system into another, for example, from modal logic to first-order logic. This form of logic translation is specifically relevant for logic programming and metalogic.
A major challenge in logic translation is determining the accuracy of translations and separating good from bad ones. The technical term for this is criteria of adequacy. An often-cited criterion states that translations should preserve the inferential relations between sentences. This implies that if an argument is valid in the original text then the translated argument should also be valid. Another criterion is that the original sentence and the translation have the same truth conditions.
Official source
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