Fully abstract compositional semantics for logic programs

  • Authors:

  • H. Gaifman;E. Shapiro

  • Affiliations:

  • Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel;Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

  • Venue:
  • POPL '89 Proceedings of the 16th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages
  • Year:
  • 1989

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Abstract

We propose a framework for discussing fully abstract compositional semantics, which exposes the interrelations between the choices of observables, compositions, and meanings. Every choice of observables and compositions determines a unique fully abstract equivalence. A semantics is fully abstract if it induces this equivalence.We study the semantics of logic programs within this framework. We find the classical Herbrand-base semantics of logic programs inadequate, since it identifies programs that should be distinguished and vice versa. We therefore propose alternative semantics, and consider the cases of no compositions, composition by program union, and composition of logic modules (programs with designated exported and imported predicates). Although equivalent programs can be in different vocabularies, we prove that our fully abstract semantics are always in a subvocabulary of that of the program. This subvocabulary, called the essential vocabulary, is common to all equivalent programs. The essential vocabulary is also the smallest subvocabulary in which an equivalent program can be written.