Pomset logic: A non-commutative extension of classical linear logic

Abstract

We extend the multiplicative fragment of linear logic with a non-commutative connective (called before), which, roughly speaking, corresponds to sequential composition. This lead us to a calculus where the conclusion of a proof is a Partially Ordered MultiSET of formulae. We firstly examine coherence semantics, where we introduce the before connective, and ordered products of formulae. Secondly we extend the syntax of multiplicative proof nets to these new operations. We then prove strong normalisation, and confluence. Coming back to the denotational semantics that we started with, we establish in an unusual way the soundness of this calculus with respect to the semantics. The converse, i.e. a kind of completeness result, is simply stated: we refer to a report for its lengthy proof. We conclude by mentioning more results, including a sequent calculus which is interpreted by both the semantics and the proof net syntax, although we are not sure that it takes all proof nets into account. The relevance of this calculus to computational linguistics, process calculi, and semantics of imperative programming is briefly explained in the introduction.