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
