The tokeniser directives are defined in the RFC 2.0.
#vars $a: a b c. vars $b: $a d e f.
The definition of $b here is equivalent to
#vars $b: a b c d e f.
The 'subtraction' operation is also allowed:
#vars $a: a b c d e f. #vars $b: $a - d f.
The definition of $b in this case is equivalent to
#vars $b: a b c e .i. e. the set of values of $a without atoms 'd' and 'f'.