Non-flat ABA is an Instance of Bipolar Argumentation
This work addresses a gap in formal argumentation theory for researchers in AI and logic, providing a foundational translation method that enables broader application of ABA techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of translating general, possibly non-flat Assumption-based Argumentation (ABA) frameworks into abstract argumentation formalisms, which was previously unsolved, and shows that bipolar argumentation frameworks (BAFs) can instantiate these ABAFs with novel semantics and proven relations under several semantics.
Assumption-based Argumentation (ABA) is a well-known structured argumentation formalism, whereby arguments and attacks between them are drawn from rules, defeasible assumptions and their contraries. A common restriction imposed on ABA frameworks (ABAFs) is that they are flat, i.e., each of the defeasible assumptions can only be assumed, but not derived. While it is known that flat ABAFs can be translated into abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) as proposed by Dung, no translation exists from general, possibly non-flat ABAFs into any kind of abstract argumentation formalism. In this paper, we close this gap and show that bipolar AFs (BAFs) can instantiate general ABAFs. To this end we develop suitable, novel BAF semantics which borrow from the notion of deductive support. We investigate basic properties of our BAFs, including computational complexity, and prove the desired relation to ABAFs under several semantics. Finally, in order to support computation and explainability, we propose the notion of dispute trees for our BAF semantics.