ResolutionA Resolution Method for Modal and Description

We provide a resolution-based proof procedure for modal and description logics that improves on previous proposals in a number of important ways. First, it avoids translations into large undecidable logics , and works directly on modal or description logic formulas instead. Second, by using labeled formulas it avoids the complexities of earlier propositional resolution-based methods for modal logic. Third, it provides a method for manipulating so-called assertional information in the description logic setting. And fourth, we believe that it combines ideas from the method of preexes used in tableaux and resolution in such a way that some of the heuristics and optimizations devised in either eld are applicable.