Logical Connective - Wikipedia
Logical Connective - Wikipedia
Logical Connective - Wikipedia
Logical connective
In logic, a logical connective (also called a logical
operator, sentential connective, or sentential
operator) is a logical constant. Connectives can be used
to connect logical formulas. For instance in the syntax of
propositional logic, the binary connective can be used
to join the two atomic formulas and , rendering the
complex formula .
Overview
In formal languages, truth functions are represented by unambiguous symbols. This allows logical
statements to not be understood in an ambiguous way. These symbols are called logical connectives,
logical operators, propositional operators, or, in classical logic, truth-functional connectives. For the
rules which allow new well-formed formulas to be constructed by joining other well-formed formulas
using truth-functional connectives, see well-formed formula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 1/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
Logical connectives can be used to link zero or more statements, so one can speak about n-ary logical
connectives. The boolean constants True and False can be thought of as zero-ary operators. Negation is
a 1-ary connective, and so on.
Truth Venn
List of common logical connectives Symbol, name
table diagram
Commonly used logical connectives include the following Zeroary connectives (constants)
ones.[2] ⊤ Truth/tautology 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 2/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
History of notations
Negation: the symbol appeared in Heyting in 1930[3][4] (compare to Frege's symbol ⫟ in his
Begriffsschrift[5]); the symbol appeared in Russell in 1908;[6] an alternative notation is to add a
horizontal line on top of the formula, as in ; another alternative notation is to use a prime symbol as
in .
Conjunction: the symbol appeared in Heyting in 1930[3] (compare to Peano's use of the set-
theoretic notation of intersection [7]); the symbol appeared at least in Schönfinkel in 1924;[8] the
symbol comes from Boole's interpretation of logic as an elementary algebra.
Disjunction: the symbol appeared in Russell in 1908[6] (compare to Peano's use of the set-
theoretic notation of union ); the symbol is also used, in spite of the ambiguity coming from the
fact that the of ordinary elementary algebra is an exclusive or when interpreted logically in a two-
element ring; punctually in the history a together with a dot in the lower right corner has been
used by Peirce.[9]
Implication: the symbol appeared in Hilbert in 1918;[10]: 76 was used by Russell in 1908[6]
(compare to Peano's Ɔ the inverted C); appeared in Bourbaki in 1954.[11]
Equivalence: the symbol in Frege in 1879;[12] in Becker in 1933 (not the first time and for this
see the following); [13] appeared in Bourbaki in 1954;[14] other symbols appeared punctually in the
history, such as in Gentzen,[15] in Schönfinkel[8] or in Chazal, [16]
True: the symbol comes from Boole's interpretation of logic as an elementary algebra over the
two-element Boolean algebra; other notations include (abbreviation for the Latin word "verum") to
be found in Peano in 1889.
False: the symbol comes also from Boole's interpretation of logic as a ring; other notations include
(rotated ) to be found in Peano in 1889.
Some authors used letters for connectives: for conjunction (German's "und" for "and") and for
disjunction (German's "oder" for "or") in early works by Hilbert (1904); [17] for negation, for
conjunction, for alternative denial, for disjunction, for implication, for biconditional
in Łukasiewicz in 1929.
Redundancy
Such a logical connective as converse implication " " is actually the same as material conditional with
swapped arguments; thus, the symbol for converse implication is redundant. In some logical calculi
(notably, in classical logic), certain essentially different compound statements are logically equivalent. A
less trivial example of a redundancy is the classical equivalence between and . Therefore, a
classical-based logical system does not need the conditional operator " " if " " (not) and " " (or) are
already in use, or may use the " " only as a syntactic sugar for a compound having one negation and
one disjunction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 3/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
There are sixteen Boolean functions associating the input truth values and with four-digit binary
outputs.[18] These correspond to possible choices of binary logical connectives for classical logic.
Different implementations of classical logic can choose different functionally complete subsets of
connectives.
One approach is to choose a minimal set, and define other connectives by some logical form, as in the
example with the material conditional above. The following are the minimal functionally complete sets
of operators in classical logic whose arities do not exceed 2:
One element
, .
Two elements
, , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , .
Three elements
, , , , , .
Another approach is to use with equal rights connectives of a certain convenient and functionally
complete, but not minimal set. This approach requires more propositional axioms, and each
equivalence between logical forms must be either an axiom or provable as a theorem.
The situation, however, is more complicated in intuitionistic logic. Of its five connectives, {∧, ∨, →, ¬,
⊥}, only negation "¬" can be reduced to other connectives (see False (logic) § False, negation and
contradiction for more). Neither conjunction, disjunction, nor material conditional has an equivalent
form constructed from the other four logical connectives.
Natural language
The standard logical connectives of classical logic have rough equivalents in the grammars of natural
languages. In English, as in many languages, such expressions are typically grammatical conjunctions.
However, they can also take the form of complementizers, verb suffixes, and particles. The denotations
of natural language connectives is a major topic of research in formal semantics, a field that studies the
logical structure of natural languages.
The meanings of natural language connectives are not precisely identical to their nearest equivalents in
classical logic. In particular, disjunction can receive an exclusive interpretation in many languages.
Some researchers have taken this fact as evidence that natural language semantics is nonclassical.
However, others maintain classical semantics by positing pragmatic accounts of exclusivity which create
the illusion of nonclassicality. In such accounts, exclusivity is typically treated as a scalar implicature.
Related puzzles involving disjunction include free choice inferences, Hurford's Constraint, and the
contribution of disjunction in alternative questions.
Other apparent discrepancies between natural language and classical logic include the paradoxes of
material implication, donkey anaphora and the problem of counterfactual conditionals. These
phenomena have been taken as motivation for identifying the denotations of natural language
conditionals with logical operators including the strict conditional, the variably strict conditional, as
well as various dynamic operators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 4/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
The following table shows the standard classically definable approximations for the English
connectives.
or disjunction OR
Properties
Some logical connectives possess properties that may be expressed in the theorems containing the
connective. Some of those properties that a logical connective may have are:
Associativity
Within an expression containing two or more of the same associative connectives in a row, the
order of the operations does not matter as long as the sequence of the operands is not changed.
Commutativity
The operands of the connective may be swapped, preserving logical equivalence to the original
expression.
Distributivity
A connective denoted by · distributes over another connective denoted by +, if
a · (b + c) = (a · b) + (a · c) for all operands a, b, c.
Idempotence
Whenever the operands of the operation are the same, the compound is logically equivalent to the
operand.
Absorption
A pair of connectives ∧, ∨ satisfies the absorption law if for all operands a, b.
Monotonicity
If f(a1, ..., an) ≤ f(b1, ..., bn) for all a1, ..., an, b1, ..., bn ∈ {0,1} such that a1 ≤ b1, a2 ≤ b2, ..., an ≤ bn.
E.g., ∨, ∧, ⊤, ⊥.
Affinity
Each variable always makes a difference in the truth-value of the operation or it never makes a
difference. E.g., ¬, ↔, , ⊤, ⊥.
Duality
To read the truth-value assignments for the operation from top to bottom on its truth table is the
same as taking the complement of reading the table of the same or another connective from
bottom to top. Without resorting to truth tables it may be formulated as
g̃(¬a1, ..., ¬an) = ¬g(a1, ..., an). E.g., ¬.
Truth-preserving
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 5/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
The compound all those arguments are tautologies is a tautology itself. E.g., ∨, ∧, ⊤, →, ↔, ⊂
(see validity).
Falsehood-preserving
The compound all those argument are contradictions is a contradiction itself. E.g., ∨, ∧, , ⊥, ⊄,
⊅ (see validity).
Involutivity (for unary connectives)
f(f(a)) = a. E.g. negation in classical logic.
For classical and intuitionistic logic, the "=" symbol means that corresponding implications "...→..." and
"...←..." for logical compounds can be both proved as theorems, and the "≤" symbol means that "...→..."
for logical compounds is a consequence of corresponding "...→..." connectives for propositional
variables. Some many-valued logics may have incompatible definitions of equivalence and order
(entailment).
Both conjunction and disjunction are associative, commutative and idempotent in classical logic, most
varieties of many-valued logic and intuitionistic logic. The same is true about distributivity of
conjunction over disjunction and disjunction over conjunction, as well as for the absorption law.
In classical logic and some varieties of many-valued logic, conjunction and disjunction are dual, and
negation is self-dual, the latter is also self-dual in intuitionistic logic.
Order of precedence
As a way of reducing the number of necessary parentheses, one may introduce precedence rules: ¬ has
higher precedence than ∧, ∧ higher than ∨, and ∨ higher than →. So for example, is
short for .
Operator Precedence
2
3
However, not all compilers use the same order; for instance, an ordering in which disjunction is lower
precedence than implication or bi-implication has also been used.[21] Sometimes precedence between
conjunction and disjunction is unspecified requiring to provide it explicitly in given formula with
parentheses. The order of precedence determines which connective is the "main connective" when
interpreting a non-atomic formula.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 6/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
The 16 logical connectives can be partially ordered to produce the following Hasse diagram. The partial
order is defined by declaring that if and only if whenever holds then so does
Applications
Logical connectives are used in computer science and in set theory.
Computer science
A truth-functional approach to logical operators is implemented as logic gates in digital circuits.
Practically all digital circuits (the major exception is DRAM) are built up from NAND, NOR, NOT, and
transmission gates; see more details in Truth function in computer science. Logical operators over bit
vectors (corresponding to finite Boolean algebras) are bitwise operations.
But not every usage of a logical connective in computer programming has a Boolean semantic. For
example, lazy evaluation is sometimes implemented for P ∧ Q and P ∨ Q, so these connectives are not
commutative if either or both of the expressions P, Q have side effects. Also, a conditional, which in
some sense corresponds to the material conditional connective, is essentially non-Boolean because for
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 7/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
if (P) then Q;, the consequent Q is not executed if the antecedent P is false (although a compound as
a whole is successful ≈ "true" in such case). This is closer to intuitionist and constructivist views on the
material conditional— rather than to classical logic's views.
Set theory
Logical connectives are used to define the fundamental operations of set theory,[22] as follows:
[29][24][30]
Subset Implication
See also
Boolean domain
Philosophy portal
Boolean function
Boolean logic Psychology portal
Boolean-valued function
Catuṣkoṭi
Dialetheism
Four-valued logic
List of Boolean algebra topics
Logical conjunction
Logical constant
Modal operator
Propositional calculus
Term logic
Tetralemma
Truth function
Truth table
Truth values
References
1. Cogwheel. "What is the difference between logical and conditional /operator/" (https://stackoverflow.
com/questions/3154132/what-is-the-difference-between-logical-and-conditional-and-or-in-c). Stack
Overflow. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 8/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 9/10
9/27/24, 1:05 PM Logical connective - Wikipedia
Sources
Bocheński, Józef Maria (1959), A Précis of Mathematical Logic, translated from the French and
German editions by Otto Bird, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, South Holland.
Chao, C. (2023). 数理逻辑:形式化方法的应用 [Mathematical Logic: Applications of the
Formalization Method] (in Chinese). Beijing: Preprint. pp. 15–28.
Enderton, Herbert (2001), A Mathematical Introduction to Logic (2nd ed.), Boston, MA: Academic
Press, ISBN 978-0-12-238452-3
Gamut, L.T.F (1991), "Chapter 2", Logic, Language and Meaning, vol. 1, University of Chicago
Press, pp. 54–64, OCLC 21372380 (https://search.worldcat.org/oclc/21372380)
Rautenberg, W. (2010), A Concise Introduction to Mathematical Logic (3rd ed.), New York: Springer
Science+Business Media, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-1221-3 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-
1221-3), ISBN 978-1-4419-1220-6.
Humberstone, Lloyd (2011). The Connectives. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01654-4.
External links
"Propositional connective" (https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php?title=Propositional_conn
ective), Encyclopedia of Mathematics, EMS Press, 2001 [1994]
Lloyd Humberstone (2010), "Sentence Connectives in Formal Logic (https://plato.stanford.edu/entrie
s/connectives-logic/)", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (An abstract algebraic logic approach to
connectives.)
John MacFarlane (2005), "Logical constants (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-constants/)",
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_connective 10/10