We consider structural completeness in modal logics. The main result is the necessary and sufficient condition for modal logics over K4 to be hereditarily structurally complete: a modal logic λ is hereditarily structurally complete $\operatorname{iff} \lambda$ is not included in any logic from the list of twenty special tabular logics. Hence there are exactly twenty maximal structurally incomplete modal logics above K4 and they are all tabular.

We show that some common varieties of modal K4-algebras have finitary unification type, thus providing effective best solutions for equations in free algebras. Applications to admissible inference rules are immediate.

We extend and generalize the work on unifiability of [8]. We give a semantic characterization for unifiability and non-unifiability in the extensions of K4. We apply this in particular to extensions of KD4, GL and K4.3 to obtain a syntactic characterization and give a concrete decision procedure for unifiability for those logics. For that purpose we use universal models.

A projective unifier for a modal formula A, over a modal logic L, is a unifier σ for A such that the equivalence of σ with the identity map is the consequence of A. Each projective unifier is a most general unifier for A. Let L be a normal modal logic containing S4. We show that every unifiable formula has a projective unifier in L iff L contains S4.3. The syntactic proof is effective. As a corollary, we conclude that all (...) normal modal logics L containing S4.3 are almost structurally complete, i.e. all admissible rules having unifiable premises are derivable in L. Moreover, L is structurally complete iff L contains McKinsey axiom M. (shrink)

Two characterizations are given of those structural consequence operations on a propositional language which can be defined via proofs from a finite number of polynomial rules.

Unification was originally introduced in automated deduction and term rewriting, but has recently also found applications in other fields. In this article, we give a survey of the results on unification obtained in two closely related, yet different, application areas of unification: description logics and modal logics.