Initial Draft of a Possible Declarative Semantics for the Language
Sebastian Schaffert, François Bry, Tim Furche · Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) · 2005
This article introduces a preliminary declarative semantics for a subset of the language Xcerpt (so-called grouping-stratifiable programs) in form of a classical (Tarski style) model theory, adapted to the specific requirements of Xcerpt’s constructs (e.g. the various aspects of incompleteness in query terms, grouping constructs in rule heads, etc.). Most importantly, the model theory uses term simulation as a replacement for term equality to handle incomplete term specifications, and an extended notion of substitutions in order to properly convey the semantics of grouping constructs. Based upon this model theory, a fixpoint semantics is also described, leading to a first notion of forward chaining evaluation of Xcerpt programs