This work investigates inductive theorem proving techniques for first-order
functions whose meaning and domains can be specified by Horn clauses built
up from the equality and finitely many unary membership predicates. In con
trast with other works in the area, constructors are not assumed to be free
. Techniques originating from tree automata are used to describe ground con
structor terms in normal form, on which the induction proofs are built up.
Validity of (free) constructor clauses is checked by an original technique
relying on the recent discovery of a complete axiomatization of finite tree
s and their rational subsets. Validity of clauses with defined symbols or n
onfree constructor terms is reduced to the latter case by appropriate infer
ence rules using a notion of ground reducibility for these symbols. We show
how to check this property by generating proof obligations which can be pa
ssed over to the inductive prover. (C) 2001 Academic Press.