A PARAMETRIC DEFINITION FOR A FAMILY OF INHERITANCE REASONERS

This paper gives a declarative specification of a popular inheritance system and shows how simple changes to this specification can result i n different path-based reasoners. This parameterized definition provid es a deeper understanding of the fundamental differences between some of the more popular path-based inheritance reasoners. In particular, i t allows the clarification of some of the results on the complexity of reasoning in the various systems. The uniform framework also allows d efinition of novel systems which constitute intermediate points in the space of possible reasoners, and facilitates perspicuous Prolog imple mentation.