A Denotational Semantics for Equilibrium Logic

TL;DR

This paper introduces a denotational semantics for Equilibrium Logic based on model sets, enabling a clearer understanding of equilibrium models and entailment relations, including a new concept called strong entailment.

Contribution

It presents a novel denotational semantics for Equilibrium Logic and Here-and-There logic, offering new tools for analyzing models and entailment, including the concept of strong entailment.

Findings

Denotational semantics captures equilibrium models as set expressions.

Conjunction is not expressible solely with other connectives in G3.

Strong entailment is characterized via denotational semantics.

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 G\"odel's G3 logic) that relies on the idea of "denotation" of a formula, that is, a function that collects the set of models of that formula. Using the three-valued logic G3 as 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 for G3 such 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 called "strong entailment". We say that $\alpha$ strongly entails $\beta$ when the equilibrium models of $\alpha \wedge \gamma$ are also equilibrium models of $\beta \wedge \gamma$ for any context $\gamma$. 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.