Non-monotonic logic programming is the basis for a declarative problem solving paradigm known as answer set programming (ASP). Departing from the seminal definition by Gelfond and Lifschitz in 1988 for simple normal logic programs, various answer set semantics have been proposed for extensions. We consider two important questions: (1) Should the minimal model property, constraint monotonicity and foundedness as defined in the literature be mandatory conditions for an answer set semantics in general? (2) If not, what other properties could be considered as general principles for answer set semantics? We address the two questions. First, it seems that the three aforementioned conditions may sometimes be too strong, and we illustrate with examples that enforcing them may exclude expected answer sets. Second, we evolve the Gelfond answer set (GAS) principles for answer set construction by refining the Gelfond's rationality principle to well-supportedness, minimality w.r.t. negation by default and minimality w.r.t. epistemic negation. The principle of well-supportedness guarantees that every answer set is constructible from if-then rules obeying a level mapping and is thus free of circular justification, while the two minimality principles ensure that the formalism minimizes knowledge both at the level of answer sets and of world views. Third, to embody the refined GAS principles, we extend the notion of well-supportedness substantially to answer sets and world views, respectively. Fourth, we define new answer set semantics in terms of the refined GAS principles. Fifth, we use the refined GAS principles as an alternative baseline to intuitively assess the existing answer set semantics. Finally, we analyze the computational complexity.

Answer Set Programming (ASP) is nowadays a dominant rule-based knowledge representation tool. Though existing ASP variants enjoy efficient implementations, generating an answer set remains intractable. The goal of this research is to define a new \asp-like rule language, 4SP, with tractable model generation. The language combines ideas of ASP and a paraconsistent rule language 4QL. Though 4SP shares the syntax of \asp and for each program all its answer sets are among 4SP models, the new language differs from ASP in its logical foundations, the intended methodology of its use and complexity of computing models. As we show in the paper, 4QL can be seen as a paraconsistent counterpart of ASP programs stratified with respect to default negation. Although model generation of well-supported models for 4QL programs is tractable, dropping stratification makes both 4QL and ASP intractable. To retain tractability while allowing non-stratified programs, in 4SP we introduce trial expressions interlacing programs with hypotheses as to the truth values of default negations. This allows us to develop a~model generation algorithm with deterministic polynomial time complexity. We also show relationships among 4SP, ASP and 4QL.

In the contemporary autonomous systems the role of complex interactions such as (possibly relaxed) dialogues is increasing significantly. In this paper we provide a paraconsistent and paracomplete implementation of inquiry dialogue under realistic assumptions regarding availability and quality of information. Various strategies for dealing with unsure and inconsistent information are analyzed. The corresponding dialogue outcomes are further evaluated against the (paraconsistent and paracomplete) distributed beliefs of the group. A specific 4-valued logic underpins the presented framework. Thanks to the qualities of the implementation tool: a rule-based query language 4QL, our solution is both expressive and tractable.

In this paper, we present two alternative approaches to defining answer sets for logic programs with arbitrary types of abstract constraint atoms (c-atoms). These approaches generalize the fixpoint-based and the level mapping based answer set semantics of normal logic programs to the case of logic programs with arbitrary types of c-atoms. The results are four different answer set definitions which are equivalent when applied to normal logic programs. The standard fixpoint-based semantics of logic programs is generalized in two directions, called answer set by reduct and answer set by complement. These definitions, which differ from each other in the treatment of negation-as-failure (naf) atoms, make use of an immediate consequence operator to perform answer set checking, whose definition relies on the notion of conditional satisfaction of c-atoms w.r.t. a pair of interpretations. The other two definitions, called strongly and weakly well-supported models, are generalizations of the notion of well-supported models of normal logic programs to the case of programs with c-atoms. As for the case of fixpoint-based semantics, the difference between these two definitions is rooted in the treatment of naf atoms. We prove that answer sets by reduct (resp. by complement) are equivalent to weakly (resp. strongly) well-supported models of a program, thus generalizing the theorem on the correspondence between stable models and well-supported models of a normal logic program to the class of programs with c-atoms. We show that the newly defined semantics coincide with previously introduced semantics for logic programs with monotone c-atoms, and they extend the original answer set semantics of normal logic programs. We also study some properties of answer sets of programs with c-atoms, and relate our definitions to several semantics for logic programs with aggregates presented in the literature.

Fages [1994] introduces the notion of well-supportedness as a key requirement for the semantics of normal logic programs and characterizes the standard answer set semantics in terms of the well-supportedness condition. With the property of well-supportedness, answer sets are guaranteed to be free of circular justifications. In this paper, we extend Fages’ work to description logic programs (or DL-programs). We introduce two forms of well-supportedness for DL-programs. The first one defines weakly well-supported models that are free of circular justifications caused by positive literals in rule bodies. The second one defines strongly well-supported models that are free of circular justifications caused by either positive or negative literals. We then define two new answer set semantics for DL-programs and characterize them in terms of the weakly and strongly well-supported models, respectively. The first semantics is based on an extended Gelfond-Lifschitz transformation and defines weakly well-supported answer sets that are free of circular justifications for the class of DL-programs without negative dl-atoms. The second semantics defines strongly well-supported answer sets which are free of circular justifications for all DL-programs. We show that the existing answer set semantics for DL-programs, such as the weak answer set semantics, the strong answer set semantics, and the FLP-based answer set semantics, satisfy neither the weak nor the strong well-supportedness condition, even for DL-programs without negative dl-atoms. This explains why their answer sets incur circular justifications.

In this paper, we present two alternative approaches to defining answer sets for logic programs with arbitrary types of abstract constraint atoms (c-atoms). These approaches generalize the fixpoint-based and the level mapping based answer set semantics of normal logic programs to the case of logic programs with arbitrary types of c-atoms. The results are four different answer set definitions which are equivalent when applied to normal logic programs. The standard fixpoint-based semantics of logic programs is generalized in two directions, called answer set by reduct and answer set by complement. These definitions, which differ from each other in the treatment of negation-as-failure (naf) atoms, make use of an immediate consequence operator to perform answer set checking, whose definition relies on the notion of conditional satisfaction of c-atoms w.r.t. a pair of interpretations. The other two definitions, called strongly and weakly well-supported models, are generalizations of the notion of well-supported models of normal logic programs to the case of programs with c-atoms. As for the case of fixpoint-based semantics, the difference between these two definitions is rooted in the treatment of naf atoms. We prove that answer sets by reduct (resp. by complement) are equivalent to weakly (resp. strongly) well-supported models of a program, thus generalizing the theorem on the correspondence between stable models and well-supported models of a normal logic program to the class of programs with c-atoms. We show that the newly defined semantics coincide with previously introduced semantics for logic programs with monotone c-atoms, and they extend the original answer set semantics of normal logic programs. We also study some properties of answer sets of programs with c-atoms, and relate our definitions to several semantics for logic programs with aggregates presented in the literature.