Timed Concurrent Language for Argumentation

Argumentation Theory offers formalisms for the study of reasoning processes taking place between intelligent entities. In this context, time is a crucial factor: in a real-world environment, activities have a determined temporal duration and the behaviour of agents is influenced by the actions previously taken. While agent-based modelling languages naturally implement concurrency and time constraints, the currently available languages for argumentation do not allow to explicitly model this type of behaviours. In this paper, we propose a language for modelling concurrent interaction between agents that also allows the specification of temporal intervals in which particular actions occur. Such a language, that we call Timed Concurrent Language for Argumentation, allows agents to communicate with each other and to reason on the acceptability of their beliefs with respect to a given time interval. We also show how Timed Abstract Argumentation Frameworks can be modelled by combining time and concurrency.