Contextual Attribute Logic of Many-Valued Attributes

Abstract

Sometimes even the most elementary data type of Formal Concept Analysis, that of a formal context, can be difficult to handle. This is typically the case when the context under consideration is not fully available, because e.g. it is too large to be completely recorded. Then even the question “Which attribute combinations are possible?” cannot simply be answered by giving all concept intents, because such a list may be huge and therefore of little insight. In such a situation, the weaker information that certain attribute combinations are possible and others are not, may be of interest. A language to systematically address such information was introduced in [8] under the name of “Contextual Attribute Logic”. It activates (with an entirely different semantic in mind) basic notions of mathematical Propositional Logic for the investigations of Formal Concept Analysis.