Comparisons and computation of well-founded semantics for disjunctive logic programs

Abstract

Much work has been done on extending the well-founded semantics to general disjunctive logic programs and various approaches have been proposed. However, these semantics are different from each other and no consensus is reached about which semantics is the most intended. In this article, we look at disjunctive well-founded reasoning from different angles. We show that there is an intuitive form of the well-founded reasoning in disjunctive logic programming which can be characterized by slightly modifying some existing approaches to defining disjunctive well-founded semantics, including program transformations, argumentation, unfounded sets (and resolution-like procedure). By employing the techniques developed by Brass and Dix in their transformation-based approach, we also provide a bottom-up procedure for this semantics. The significance of our work is not only in clarifying the relationship among different approaches, but also shed some light on what is an intended well-founded semantics for disjunctive logic programs.