Towards a unified theory of logic programming semantics: Level mapping characterizations of selector generated models

Currently, the variety of expressive extensions and different semantics created for logic programs with negation is diverse and heterogeneous, and there is a lack of comprehensive comparative studies which map out the multitude of perspectives in a uniform way. Most recently, however, new methodologies have been proposed which allow one to derive uniform characterizations of different declarative semantics for logic programs with negation. In this paper, we study the relationship between two of these approaches, namely the level mapping characterizations due to [Hitzler and Wendt 2005], and the selector generated models due to [Schwarz 2004]. We will show that the latter can be captured by means of the former, thereby supporting the claim that level mappings provide a very flexible framework which is applicable to very diversely defined semantics.Comment: 17 page

Towards a Systematic Account of Different Semantics for Logic Programs

In [Hitzler and Wendt 2002, 2005], a new methodology has been proposed which allows to derive uniform characterizations of different declarative semantics for logic programs with negation. One result from this work is that the well-founded semantics can formally be understood as a stratified version of the Fitting (or Kripke-Kleene) semantics. The constructions leading to this result, however, show a certain asymmetry which is not readily understood. We will study this situation here with the result that we will obtain a coherent picture of relations between different semantics for normal logic programs.Comment: 20 page

Parametrized semantics of logic programs: a unifying framework

AbstractThe different semantics that can be assigned to a logic program correspond to different assumptions made concerning the atoms that are rule heads and whose logical values cannot be inferred from the rules. For example, the well founded semantics corresponds to the assumption that every such atom is false, while the Kripke–Kleene semantics corresponds to the assumption that every such atom is unknown. In this paper, we propose to unify and extend this assumption-based approach by introducing parameterized semantics for logic programs. The parameter holds the value that one assumes for all rule heads whose logical values cannot be inferred from the rules. We work within multi-valued logic with bilattice structure, and we consider the class of logic programs defined by Fitting.Following Fitting's approach, we define an operator that allows us to compute the parameterized semantic, and to compare and combine semantics obtained for different values of the parameter. We show that our approach captures and extends the usual semantics of conventional logic programs thereby unifying their computation