Many-Valued Logic, Partiality, and Abstraction in Formal Specification Languages

The purpose of this article is to clarify the role that many-valued logic can or should play in formal specification of software systems for modeling partiality. We analyse a representative set of specification languages. Our findings suggest that many-valued logic is less useful for modeling those aspects of partiality, for which it is traditionally intended: modeling non-termination and error values. On the other hand, many-valued logic is emerging as a mainstream tool in abstraction of formal analyses of various kinds, and we suggest that specification languages feature many-valued abstraction logics. © 2005 Oxford University Press.

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