{"paper":{"title":"Big-step and small-step Horn clause derivations applied to operational semantics","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.PL","authors_text":"John P. Gallagher, Jos\\'e Morales, Louis Rustenholz, Manuel Hermenegildo, Pedro Lopez-Garcia","submitted_at":"2026-06-18T21:16:59Z","abstract_excerpt":"The concepts of big-step and small-step derivations are familiar from the operational semantics of programming languages. These concepts are applicable in the more general setting of Horn clause derivations. We prove equivalence between big-step derivations and two versions of small-step derivations for Horn clauses. By specialising interpreters for these derivation strategies, any set of Horn clauses can be transformed into a provably equivalent set of clauses that inherits the behaviour of a given (big- or small-step) Horn clause interpreter. As a special case of this transformation, big-ste"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2606.20944","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2606.20944/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}