Efficient elimination of Skolem functions in \(\text {LK}^\text {h}\)

Abstract

We present a sequent calculus with the Henkin constants in the place of the free variables. By disposing of the eigenvariable condition, we obtained a proof system with a strong locality property—the validity of each inference step depends only on its active formulas, not its context. Our major outcomes are: the cut elimination via a non-Gentzen-style algorithm without resorting to regularization and the elimination of Skolem functions with linear increase in the proof length for a subclass of derivations with cuts.