A denotational semantics for equilibrium logic
Felicidad Aguado, Pedro Cabalar, David Pearce, Gilberto Pérez, Concepción Vidal · Theory and Practice of Logic Programming · 2015
Abstract In this paper we provide an alternative semantics for Equilibrium Logic and its monotonic basis, the logic of Here-and-There (also known as Gödel'sG3logic) that relies on the idea ofdenotationof a formula, that is, a function that collects the set of models of that formula. Using the three-valued logicG3as a starting point and an ordering relation (for which equilibrium/stable models are minimal elements) we provide several elementary operations for sets of interpretations. By analysing structural properties of the denotation of formulas, we show some expressiveness results forG3such as, for instance, that conjunction is not expressible in terms of the other connectives. Moreover, the denotational semantics allows us to capture the set of equilibrium models of a formula with a simple and compact set expression. We also use this semantics to provide several formal definitions for entailment relations that are usual in the literature, and further introduce a new one calledstrong entailment. We say that α strongly entails β when the equilibrium models of α ∧ γ are also equilibrium models of β ∧ γ for any context γ. We also provide a characterisation of strong entailment in terms of the denotational semantics, and give an example of a sufficient condition that can be applied in some cases.