Broadening Label-based Argumentation Semantics with May-Must Scales (May-Must Argumentation)

Abstract: The semantics as to which set of arguments in a given argumentation graph may be acceptable (acceptability semantics) can be characterised in a few different ways. Among them, labelling-based approach allows for concise and flexible determination of acceptability statuses of arguments through assignment of a label indicating acceptance, rejection, or undecided to each argument. In this work, we contemplate a way of broadening it by accommodating may- and must- conditions for an argument to be accepted or rejected, as determined by the number(s) of rejected and accepted attacking arguments. We show that the broadened label-based semantics can be used to express more mild indeterminacy than inconsistency for acceptability judgement when, for example, it may be the case that an argument is accepted and when it may also be the case that it is rejected. We identify that finding which conditions a labelling satisfies for every argument can be an undecidable problem, which has an unfavourable implication to existence of a semantics. We propose to address this problem by enforcing a labelling to maximally respect the conditions, while keeping the rest that would necessarily cause non-termination labelled undecided. Several semantics will be presented and the relation among them will be noted. Towards the end, we will touch upon possible research directions that can be pursued further.