Temporal Annotated Constraint Logic Programming

We introduce a family of logics and associated programming languages for representing and reasoning about time. The family is conceptually simple while allowing for different models of time. Formulas can be labeled with temporal information using annotations. In this way we avoid the proliferation of variables and quantifiers as encountered in first order approaches. Unlike temporal logic, both qualitative and quantitative (metric) temporal reasoning about definite and indefinite information with time points (instants) and time periods (temporal intervals) in different models of time are supported. Our temporal annotated logic can be made an instance of annotated constraint logic, which is also presented in this paper. Given a logic in this framework, there is a systematic way to make a clausal fragment executable as a constraint logic program. We show this for the generic case and for the specific case of temporal annotated logic. In both cases we give an interpreter and a compiler that can be implemented in standard constraint logic programming languages.