Contracting TBoxes:

the importance of being modular

Andreas Herzig Laurent Perrussel Ivan Varzinczak

IRIT { 118 route de Narbonne

31062 Toulouse Cedex { France

e-mail: {herzig,perrusse,ivan}@irit.fr
http://www.irit.fr/recherches/LILAC

Abstract
In this work we address the problem of contracting terminological
axioms in description logics. We present the semantics of ontology
change for a fragment of ALC , and also dene the corresponding syn-
tactical operators for contracting TBoxes. We then take prot of a
concept of modularity of TBoxes in order to establish soundness and
completeness results for modular ontologies.

1 Introduction
Suppose we have an agent designed for an automatic passport control system
in an airport. The agent's knowledge base might be made up of an ontology
containing a terminology about passengers, as well as assertions describing
specic states of aairs of such an environment.
Suppose that the agent's terminology states that \a foreigner is someone
from outside the European Union". This can be encoded in description
logics likeALC by the axiom Foreigner EUcitizen. Suppose now that
 :

one day the agent gets the information that there is a Brazilian passenger
who is also an EU citizen. In such a case, the agent must change her beliefs
about the relationship between concepts Foreigner and EUcitizen: there can be
people with double citizenship. This example is an instance of the problem of
changing propositional belief bases and is largely addressed in the literature
about belief change [6] and belief update [14].
1
 Next, suppose our agent's terminology contain the statement EUcitizen 

8passport:EU, i.e., \EU citizens have only EU passports". This means that if
someone is an EU citizen, all her passports must have been delivered by some
EU member country. Now suppose a person with double citizenship arrives at
the passport control desk and, despite having EU citizenship, she surprisingly
shows a Brazilian passport. This means that EUcitizen passport:EU has
 8

to be given up.
Imagine now that the agent believes that \every passenger possesses a
passport": Passenger passport: . This means that, in order to be a valid
v 9 >

passenger someone must have a passport. However, one day there is someone
without a passport claiming that she can travel anyway by just showing her
ID card. If this gets accepted, then Passenger passport: has to be
v 9 >

retracted from the terminology. Alternatively, the agent's terminology could

have the information that in order to get into Czech Republic, a Brazilian
passenger must have a visa. But at some point the Czech Republic joined
the European Union, and hence Brazilian tourists no longer need a visa to
taste a beer in Kafka's country.
The examples above illustrate situations where terminological axioms
must be changed. In the rst example, being a non-EU citizen is shown
not to be a complete denition of a foreigner, the latter actually being a spe-
cialization of the former. In the second example, having only EU passports,
once believed to dene an EU citizen, has now to be seen as a denition for
those EU citizens who do not have double citizenship. In the last examples,
the need for an attribute under concern is questioned in the light of new
information showing a context where it is no longer mandatory. Carrying
out modications like those is what we here call contracting a terminology.
In the DL literature, it seems to be more or less tacitly assumed that
TBoxes are designed once for all and are not likely to evolve, while ABoxes
are more likely to change. However, our examples show that TBoxes may
also change.
Up until now, theory change has been studied mainly for knowledge bases
in classical logic, both in terms of revision and update. Only in a few recent
works it has been considered in the realm of modal logics, viz. in epistemic
logic [8], in action languages [4] and in PDL [9]. Recently, several works [18,
12] have investigated revision of beliefs about facts of the world, which (in
description logic terms) corresponds to revising ABoxes. In our examples,
this would concern e.g. the current status of the passenger: the agent believes
he is not an EU citizen, but is wrong about this and might subsequently be
forced to revise her beliefs about the current state of aairs. Such belief
revision operations do not modify the agent's terminology. In opposition to
2
that, here we are interested exactly in such modications. The aim of this
work is to make a step toward that issue and propose a framework that deals
with the contraction of terminological axioms.

2 Background
2.1 Logical preliminaries

In ALC we use A to denote atomic concepts, R for atomic roles from a set
Roles = R ; R ; : : : , and C; D; : : : for complex concept descriptions. These
f 1 2 g

are recursively dened in the following way:

C ::= A C C C C C R:C R:C
j > j ? j : j u j t j 8 j 9

In our example, Foreigner EUcitizen, passport:EU and passport: are com-

u 8 9 >

plex concepts in . ALC

Denition 1 An interpretation
is a tuple I h
I ; I
i such that
I is a
I
nonempty set and
a function mapping:
 every concept to a subset of
;
I

 every role to a subset of
I
I . 

Given =
I ; I ,
I is the domain, and I the associated interpretation

I h
i

function. If a is an individual, A an atomic concept, R an atomic role, and

C , D concepts, we have:
AI
I ; RI
I
I ;
  
I =
I ; I = ; ( C )I =
I C I ;
> ? ; : n

(C D)I = C I DI ; (C D)I = C I DI ;
u \ t [

( R:C )I = a
I : b:(a; b) RI implies b C I ;

8 f 2 8 2 2 g

( R:C )I = a
I : b:(a; b) RI and b C I

9 f 2 9 2 2 g

Concept inclusion axioms (alias axioms or subsumptions) are of the form

C D. Concept denitions C D abbreviate C D and D C .
v  v v

Intuitively, C D gives a denition for concept C in terms of D. In our



example, DoubleCitizen Foreigner EUcitizen gives necessary and sucient

 u

conditions for a person to have double citizenship.

An interpretation satises a subsumption C D (noted = C
I v I j v

D) if C I DI . Intuitively, C
 D means that C is more specic than
v

D. In our example, DoubleCitizen EUcitizen says that someone holding

v

3
two citizenships is a specialization of a European citizen; and Passenger v

9 passport: says that a necessary condition to be a passenger is having a

>

passport.
We call a set of axioms a terminology, alias TBox. An interpretation
T I

is a model of (noted = ) if = C D for all C D . An axiom

T I j T I j v v 2 T

C D is a consequence of (noted
v = C D) if for every , =
T T j v I I j T

implies = C D.
I j v

2.2 Simple inclusion axioms

Let C be a concept. The mapping roles(C ) returns the set of roles occurring
in C . For instance roles( R :D R :E ) = R ; R . If roles(C ) = , we
9 1 u8 2 f 1 2g ;

call C a boolean concept. For an axiom C D, roles S (C D) = roles(C ) v v [

roles(D). Moreover, for a TBox , let roles( ) = C vD2T roles(C D).

T T v

We dene two important kinds of axioms.

Denition 2 An axiom C D is a boolean axiom if roles(C D) = .
v v ;

Else C D is a non-boolean axiom.

v

It will be useful to split I into the interpretation of concepts and the

interpretation of roles. We note the former mapping I and the latter I .

 =
;  will be called a boolean interpretation. For terminologies

I h
I I
i T

such that roles( ) = , boolean interpretations suce.

T ;

Boolean interpretations will be represented alternatively as sets of valu-

ations, where a valuation is a subset of the set of atomic concepts. Given a
valuation v we can then construct a boolean interpretation v =
I ; I I h
i

such that
I = v and AI = v : A v . Then, the canonical

f g f 2 g

model of a set of boolean axioms -model( ) =
I ; I where
I = v : T h
i f

v valuation ; and v = , and AI = v : A v .

I j T g f 2 g

We also make a syntactical restriction on the non-boolean axioms in our

TBoxes.
Denition 3 If C is a boolean concept, then R:C is a boolean value re- 8

striction, and R:C is a boolean existential restriction.

9

In our example, passport:EU and refund:VAT are, respectively, a value

8 9

and an existential restriction.

Denition 4 A simple axiom is a boolean axiom or a non-boolean axiom
C D such that roles(C ) = and D is a boolean value or existential re-
v ;

striction.

4
 In our running example, DoubleCitizen v ForeigneruEUcitizen, EUcitizen v
8 passport:EU and Passenger v 9passport:> are simple axioms.
Henceforth we suppose that:
All axioms in a TBox are simple axioms. (H)
Our fragment diers from just in the sense that only boolean con-
ALC

cepts are allowed in the scope of a quantication over a role. We observe
however that we could allow for axioms with nested roles like C R : R :D  8 1 8 2
and GCIs like R :E R :F . For that it suces to adapt an existing tech-
8 3  8 4
nique of subformula renaming for classical logic [17, 1] to recursively replace
complex concepts with new concept names, stating denitions for these as
global axioms. For instance, C R : R :D should then be rewritten as
 8 1 8 2
C  8R :C 0 and C 0
1 R :D, and R :E
 8 2 R :F could be replaced by
8 3  8 4
E 0  8R :F and E 0
4 R :E , with C 0 ; E 0 new concept names. It is known
 8 4
that renaming is satisability preserving and can be computed in polynomial
time [16]. However it remains to assess the impact the introduction of new
concept names can have on the intuition about the original ontology.

3 Semantics of contraction
When a knowledge base has to be changed, the basic operation is that of
contraction. (In belief-base update [20, 14] it has also been called erasure.)
In this section we dene contraction of an interpretation =
I ; I by I h
i

a concept inclusion axiom C D. The result will be a set of interpretations.

v

In general we might contract by any axiom C D. Here we focus on v

contraction by simple axioms. We therefore suppose that we contract by

either C D, or C R:D, or C R:D, where roles(C ) = roles(D) = .
v v 8 v 9 ;

For the case of contracting by a boolean axiom, we suppose that it suces

to contract the set of boolean axioms of the TBox. To do that, we resort
to existing approaches in order to change them. In the following, we can
consider the DL counterpart of some belief change operator such as Forbus'
update method [5], or the possible models approach [20, 21], or WSS [10] or
MPMA [3].
Contraction by C D means adding new objects to
I . Let be a
v

contraction operator for classical logic.

Denition 5 The set of models resulting from contracting an interpretation
I =
I ; I by a boolean axiom C D
h
i v is the singleton h
I ; I C vD =

i

fh
J ; J such that  =  -model(C

ig J I v D ).

5
 One might object that some RI might have to change as well, otherwise
contracting a boolean axiom may con ict with non-boolean ones. For in-
stance, if C R: v 9 and we contract by C , the result may make
> 2 T v ?

C v 9R: untrue. However, given the amount of information we have, we

>

think that whatever we do with RI , we will always be able to nd a counter-

example to the intuitiveness of the operation, as it is domain dependent. For
example, augmenting RI may make a concept a specialization of another: if
we have C R:D and we augment R such that C R:E is true in the
 8
I v 9

resulting interpretation, we may loose the denition of C . Hence, deciding

on what changes to carry out on RI when contracting boolean axioms de-
pends on the user's intuition, and this information cannot be generalizedI and
established once for all. We here opt for a priori doing nothing with R and
postponing correction of the other axioms in . T

Now we consider contraction of non-boolean axioms. Suppose the knowl-

edge engineer acquires new information regarding the value restrictions with
role R. This means that the axioms with value restrictions mentioning R
are probably too strong, i.e., there can be unforeseen special instances of a
concept they describe, and thus they have to be weakened. Consider e.g.
the axiom EUcitizen passport:EU, and suppose it has to be weakened to
v 8

the more specic one EUcitizen DoubleCitizen passport:EU, or, equiv-

u : v 8

alently, EUcitizen (DoubleCitizen passport:EU). In order to carry out

v t 8
1

such a weakening, rst the designer has to contract the non-boolean axioms
and second to expand the resulting set with the weakened axioms.
Contraction by C R:D amounts
v 8 to changing RI by adding any `coun-
terexample' links from C I to ( D)I . :

Denition 6 The set of models resulting from contracting an interpretation

I =
I ; I by an axiom C R:D is
I ; I Cv8R:D =
J ; J :
J =
h
i v 8 h
i fh
i

I ; J = I except that RJ = RI for some

[R C I
I .
R   g

Suppose now the knowledge engineer learns new information about the
existential restrictions concerning the role R. This usually occurs when the
non-boolean axioms with existential restrictions are too strong, i.e., the con-
cept that is subsumed by the restriction under concern is too weak and
has to be made more expressive. Let Brazilian visa:EU be the law
v 9

to be contracted, and suppose it has to be weakened to the more specic

1 The other possibility of weakening the axiom, i.e., replacing it by EUcitizen v
8passport:(EU t :EU) looks silly. So we preferred to weaken the axiom by strengthen-
ing its left hand side.

6
Brazilian EUcitizen
u : visa:EU. To implement such a weakening, the de-
v 9

signer has to rst contract the set of axioms with existential restrictions and
then to expand the result with the weakened axiom.
Contraction by C R:D corresponds to removing some R-links between
v 9

C -individuals and D-individuals. Deletion of such pairs has as consequence

that objects having property C are no longer required to be related with
some object having property D by the relation under concern.
Denition 7 The set of models that result from contracting an interpreta-
tion I = h
I ;
I i by an axiom C v 9R:D is h
I ;
I iC v9R:D = fh
J ;
J i :

J =
I ;
J =
I except that RJ = RI n R for some R  RI \ (C I 
I )g.

4 Modular terminologies
If R Roles, R = , then we dene
 6 ;

R= C D T : roles(C D) R =
f v 2 T v \ 6 ;g

Hence, R contains all non-boolean axioms of the terminology whose roles

T T

appear in R . For R = , we dene ;

;= C D T : roles(C D) = ;
f v 2 T v ;g

denoting the set of all boolean axioms of a knowledge base.

For example, if
8 Passenger passport: ; EUcitizen passport:EU; 9
< v 9 > =  8

T = : Foreigner passport: EU; Foreigner refund:Tax; ;

 8 : v 9

DoubleCitizen Foreigner EUcitizen  u

then we have frefundg = fForeigner v 9refund:Taxg

T

and ; = fDoubleCitizen  Foreigner u EUcitizeng

T

For parsimony's sake, we write T R instead of T fRg.

We suppose from now on that is partitioned, in the sense that ;
T fT g[

fT
R : Ri Roles is a partition of . We thus exclude R containing
i
2 g
2
T T i

more than one role name, which means that complex concepts with nested
roles are not allowed. We here rely on the following principle of modular-
ity [11]:
S 2 Remembering, fT ; g [ fT Ri : Ri 2 Rolesg partitions T if and only if T = T ; [
Ri 2Roles T Ri , and T ; \ T Ri = ;, and T Ri \ T Rj = ; if i 6= j . Note that T ; and T Ri
might be empty.

7
Denition 8 A terminology T is modular if and only if for every C v D,
=C D implies roles CvD ; =C D.
T j v T
( )
[T j v

Modularity means that when investigating whether C D is a consequence v

of , the only axioms in that are relevant are those whose role names
T T

occur in C D and the boolean axioms in ;.

v T

Modularity does not generally hold. Clearly if the TBox is not parti-
tioned, then modularity fails. To witness, consider
= C R : R :C 0; R : R :C 0 D
T f  8 1 8 2 8 1 8 2  g

Then =C D, but ; =C D.
T j  T 6j 

Nevertheless even under the hypothesis that ; R : Ri Roles fT g [ fT i

2 g

partitions , modularity may fail to hold. For example, let

T

= C R: ; C R: T f v 8 ? v 9 >g

Then ; = , and R = . Now =C , but clearly ; =C .

T ; T T T j v ? T 6j v ?

How can we know whether a given TBox is modular? The following T

criterion is simpler:
Denition 9 A terminology is boolean-modular if and only if for every
T

boolean axiom C v D,
=C D implies ; =C D.
T j v T j v

This property is enough to guarantee modularity:

Theorem 1 ([11]) Let T be a partitioned terminology. If T is boolean-
modular, then T is modular.
Modular TBoxes have several advantages. For example, consistency of a
modular TBox can be checked by just checking consistency of ;: If is T T

modular, then = C C if and only if ; = C C . Deduction of an

T j  : T j  :

axiom with nested roles R ; : : : ; Rn does not need to take into account the
1
axioms with value restrictions for roles other than R ; : : : ; Rn. 1
In [11] is given a sound and complete method for deciding whether a
TBox is modular.
Similar modularity notions have also been proposed in the literature [2].
Modularity is related to uniform interpolation for TBoxes [7]. Let concepts( ) T

denote the concept names occurring in a TBox . Given and a signature T T

S  concepts( ) roles( ), a TBox S over (concepts( ) roles( ))

T [ T is
T T [ T nS

a uniform interpolant of outside if and only if:

T S

8
  T = S; j T

 T
S =C D for every C
j v D that has no occurrences of symbols
v

from . S

It is not dicult to see that a partition ; R : Ri Roles fT g [ fT i

2 g

is modular if and only if every R is a uniform interpolant of outside

T i
T

roles( ) Ri . In [19] there are complexity results for computing uniform

T n f g

interpolants in . ALC

In [7] a notion of conservative extension is dened that is similar to mod-

ularity. There, is a conservative extension of if and only if for all
T1 [ T2 T1

concepts C; D built from concepts( ) roles( ), = C D implies T1 [ T1 T1 [ T 2 j v

T1 j=C D. v

Given Theorem 1, we can show that checking for modularity can be re-
duced to checking for conservative extensions of ;. Indeed, supposing that T

the signature of ; is the set of all concept names, we have that is modular
T T

if and only if for every role Ri, R ; is a conservative extension of ;.

T i
[T T

We now dene a quantier-based decomposition of TBoxes:

Denition 10 Let be a TBox satisfying Hypothesis (H). Then 8R =
T T

f C R:D : C
v 8 R:D R , and R = C
9
v 8 R:D : C
2 T g R:D T f v 9 v 9 2

T
R g.

Hence 8R contains all axioms with value restrictions among R in the TBox
T

T , and 9R all axioms with existential restrictions among R in .

T T

With that we have decomposed a TBox into modules ;, 8R and 9R . T T T T

We henceforth suppose that every axiom in has the form of the axioms in T

one of these three modules.

5 Contracting terminologies
Having established the semantics of TBox contraction, we can turn to its
syntactical counterpart.
Let = ;; 8R ; 9R be a terminology and C D an axiom. Then
T hT T T i v

by ;; 8R ; 9R CvD we denote the TBox resulting from the contraction of

hT T T i
; ; R ; R by C D.
hT T8 9 T i v

Contracting a TBox by a boolean axiom C D amounts to using any ex- v

isting contraction operator for classical logic. Let be such an operator that

is correct w.r.t. its semantic counterpart of Section 3. We dene contraction

of a terminology by a boolean axiom as follows:
9
 8 9 C vD = hT ; T8 ; T9 i, where T
Denition 11 ;; T R ; T R i
hT
; R R ; = T;
C v D and T9R = fCi u (:C t D) v 9R:Di : Ci v 9R:Di 2 T9R g [ T9R nfRg .

The reason we change 9R is that we also need to guarantee that C D

T v

does not follow from 8R and 9R .

T T
3

We now consider the case of contracting a TBox by a simple axiom with

existential restriction C R:D. For every element of 9R , we ensure that
v 9 T

9 R:D still subsumes those concepts C 0 C . The following operator does

u :

the job.
Denition 12 ; ; 8R ; 9R C v9R:D = ; ; 8R ; 9R , where 9R = Ci
hT T T i hT T T i T f u

C R:Di : Ci R:Di R R nfRg .

: v 9 v 9 9 92 T g[T

For instance, contracting the axiom Foreigner DoubleCitizen refund:Tax u v 9

from our TBox example gives us Foreigner DoubleCitizen refund:Tax inu: v 9

the result.
Finally, to contract a terminology by C R:D, for every axiom in 8R
v 8 T

we must ensure that all concepts C 0 C are still specializations of R:D.

u : 8

This is enough to guarantee that the axiom C R:D has been contracted. v 8

The operator below formalizes this:

Denition 13 ; ; 8R ; 9R C v8R:D = ; ; 8R ; 9R , where 8R = Ci
hT T T i hT T T i T f u

C R:Di : Ci R:Di R R nfRg .

: v 8 v 8 8 82 T g[T

For instance, contracting DoubleCitizen passport:EU from our TBox weak-

v 8

ens EUcitizen passport:EU to (EUcitizen DoubleCitizen) passport:EU

v 8 u v 8

in the contracted TBox.

6 Characterization results
In this section we present the main results that follow from our framework.
These require the TBox under consideration to be modular.
Here we establish that our operators are correct w.r.t. the semantics.
Our rst theorem establishes that the semantical contraction of the models
of ;; 8R ; 9R by C D produces models of ;; 8R ; 9R CvD .
hT T T i v hT T T i

3 An example of such an inference is T8R = fC v 8R:Dg and T9R = fC v 9R::Dg:

we have T8R [ T9R j= C v ?. Thus C v ? is what has been called an implicit boolean
inclusion axiom of T [11].

10
Theorem 2 Let I =
I ; I
be a model of hT ; ; T8R ; T9R i, and let C v D
h
i

be a simple axiom. For all models J , if J 2 h
I ;
I iC vD , then J satises

; R R
hT ; T8 ; T9 i
C vD .

It remains now to prove that the models of ;; 8R ; 9R CvD result from hT T T i

the semantical contraction of models of ;; 8R ; 9R by C D. This does hT T T i v

not hold in general, as shown by the following example: suppose there is

only one atomic concept A and one atomic role R, and consider the TBox
; ; R ; R such that ; = , R = A R: ; A R:A , and 9R =
hT 8 9
T T i 8 T ; T f v 8 ? v 8 g T

f> v 9 R: . The only models of this TBox are =
I ; I , where
I =

>g I h
i

( A) and RI = ( A)I ( A)I , and by denition, Av9R:> = . On the

:
I :  : I fI g

other hand, syntactically, ;; 8R ; 9R Av9R:> = ;; 8R ; A R: .

hT T T i hT T f: v 9 >gi

The contracted TBox has two models: and =
J ; J , where RJ = I J h
i

( A) ( A) . While A is valid in the contraction of the models of

:
J 
J : :
; ; R ; R , it is not valid in the models of ; ; R ; R
hT 8 9
T T i 8 9 Av9R:> . hT T T i

Fortunately, we can establish a result for those TBoxes that are modular.
The proof requires three lemmas. The rst one says that for a modular TBox
we can restrict our attention to its `big' models.
Lemma 1 Let = ; ; 8R ; 9R be modular, and let C D be a boolean
T hT T T i v

axiom. Then =C D if and only if -model( ; ) =C D.

T j v T j v

Note that the lemma does not hold for non-modular TBoxes.
The second lemma says that modularity is preserved under contraction.
Lemma 2 Let T be modular, and C v D a simple axiom. Then T
C vD is
modular.

The third lemma establishes the required link between the contraction
operators and contraction of `big' models.
Lemma 3 Let = ;; 8R ; 9R be modular, and C D be a simple
T hT T T i v

axiom. If = -model( ; ); J is a model of C vD , then there is a model

J h T
i T

I of T such that J 2 IC vD .
Putting the three above lemmas together we get:
Theorem 3 Let = ; ; 8R ; 9R be modular, let C
T hT T T i v D be a simple

axiom, and hT ; T8 ; T9 i be hT ; T8 ; T9 iC vD . If T ; ; T8R ; T9R j=

; R R ; R R
C 0 v D0 , then for every model I of T and every J 2 IC vD , J j= C 0 v D0 .

11
 Our two theorems together establish correctness of the operators:
Corollary 1 Let = ; ; 8R ; 9R be modular, C D be a simple axiom,
T hT T T i v

and ; ; 8R ; 9R be ; ; 8R ; 9R C vD . Then ; ; 8R ; 9R = C 0
hT T T i hT T T i T T T j v

D0 if and only if for every model of and everyI C vD ,

T = C 0 D0 . J 2 I J j v

We give a necessary condition for success of contraction:

Theorem 4 Let C D be a simple non-boolean axiom such that ; =C
v T 6j v

D. Let hT ; ; T8R ; T9R i be hT ; ; T8R ; T9R iC vD . If hT

; ; T R ; T R i is modular,
8 9
then T ; ; T8R ; T9R 6j=C v D.

7 Concluding remarks
In this work we have presented a method for changing a TBox given an axiom
we want to contract. We have supposed that the axioms in the TBox and
those to be contracted are simple.
We have dened a semantics for terminology contraction and also pre-
sented its syntactical counterpart through contraction operators. Soundness
and completeness of such operators with respect to the semantics have been
established (Corollary 1).
We have also shown that modularity is a sucient condition for a con-
traction to be successful (Theorem 4).
We are aware that our contraction operators are rather weak, in the
sense that e.g. when we contract by C R:D then we forget about all the
v 8

information regarding value restrictions for role R. We think that this is the
price to pay for a domain-independent terminology-change operation. If we
want to go beyond and dene rened change operations then it seems that
we have to move toward more syntax-dependent operations, as studied in the
belief revision literature [8, 15].
What is the status of the AGM-postulates for contraction in our frame-
work? First, contraction of boolean axioms satises all the postulates, as
soon as we assume the underlying classical contraction operation satises

all of them.
In the general case, however, our constructions do not satisfy the central
postulate of preservation CvD = if =C D. Indeed, suppose we have
T T T 6j v

a language with only one atomic concept A, and a model =
I ; I such I h
i

that R = (
I
I ) (AI AI ). Then = A R: A and =

I  n  I j R: A.
v 8 : I 6j > v 8 :

Now the contraction >v8R::A yields the model such that R = (

J ).

I
J J J 

12
Then = A R: A, i.e., the axiom A R: A is not preserved. Our
J 6j v 8 : v 8 :

contraction operation thus behaves rather like an update operation.

Now let us focus on the other postulates. Since our operator has a be-
havior which is close to the update postulate, we focus on the following basic
erasure postulates introduced in [13]. Let Cn( ) be the set of all logical
T

consequences of a TBox . T

KM1 Cn( C vD ) Cn( )

T  T

Postulate KM1 does not always hold because it is possible to make an axiom
C v 8 R: valid in the resulting TBox by removing elements of RI (cf.
?

Denition 7).
KM2 C D = Cn( C vD )
v 2 T

Under the condition that is modular, Postulate KM2 is satised (cf.

T

Theorem 4).
KM3 If Cn( ) = Cn( ) and Cn( C D ) = Cn(C 0 D0 ), then
T1 T2 f v g v g

Cn( C vD ) = Cn( C vD ).
T1 0 0 T2

Theorem 5 If T1 and T2 are modular and the propositional contraction op-

erator satises Postulate KM3, then Postulate KM3 is satised for all
simple axioms C v D and C 0 v D0 .

Here we have presented the case for contraction, but our denitions can
be extended to expansion and revision of TBoxes, too.

Acknowledgments
Ivan Varzinczak has been supported by a fellowship from the government of
the Federative Republic of Brazil. Grant: CAPES BEX 1389/01-7.

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