Y-Logic: A Framework for Reasoning About Chameleonic Programs with Inconsistent Completions

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Subrahmanian, V.S.

Affiliations: Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA

Abstract: Large logic programs are normally designed by teams of individuals, each of whom designs a subprogram. While each of these subprograms may have consistent completions, the logic program obtained by taking the union of these subprograms may not. However, the resulting program still serves a useful purpose, for a (possibly) very large subset of it still has a consistent completion. We argue that “small” inconsistencies may cause a logic program to have no models (in the traditional sense), even though it still serves some useful purpose. A semantics is developed in this paper for general logic programs which ascribes a very reasonable meaning to general logic programs irrespective of whether they have consistent (in the classical logic sense) completions.

DOI: 10.3233/FI-1990-13405

Journal: Fundamenta Informaticae, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 465-483, 1990