Proving Looping and Non-Looping Non-Termination by Finite Automata

A new technique is presented to prove non-termination of term rewriting. The basic idea is to find a non-empty regular language of terms that is closed under rewriting and does not contain normal forms. It is automated by representing the language by a tree automaton with a fixed number of states, and expressing the mentioned requirements in a SAT formula. Satisfiability of this formula implies non-termination. Our approach succeeds for many examples where all earlier techniques fail, for instance for the S-rule from combinatory logic

Semantics of a Typed Algebraic Lambda-Calculus

Algebraic lambda-calculi have been studied in various ways, but their semantics remain mostly untouched. In this paper we propose a semantic analysis of a general simply-typed lambda-calculus endowed with a structure of vector space. We sketch the relation with two established vectorial lambda-calculi. Then we study the problems arising from the addition of a fixed point combinator and how to modify the equational theory to solve them. We sketch an algebraic vectorial PCF and its possible denotational interpretations

Definitions by Rewriting in the Calculus of Constructions

The main novelty of this paper is to consider an extension of the Calculus of Constructions where predicates can be defined with a general form of rewrite rules. We prove the strong normalization of the reduction relation generated by the beta-rule and the user-defined rules under some general syntactic conditions including confluence. As examples, we show that two important systems satisfy these conditions: a sub-system of the Calculus of Inductive Constructions which is the basis of the proof assistant Coq, and the Natural Deduction Modulo a large class of equational theories.Comment: Best student paper (Kleene Award

Inductive types in the Calculus of Algebraic Constructions

In a previous work, we proved that an important part of the Calculus of Inductive Constructions (CIC), the basis of the Coq proof assistant, can be seen as a Calculus of Algebraic Constructions (CAC), an extension of the Calculus of Constructions with functions and predicates defined by higher-order rewrite rules. In this paper, we prove that almost all CIC can be seen as a CAC, and that it can be further extended with non-strictly positive types and inductive-recursive types together with non-free constructors and pattern-matching on defined symbols.Comment: Journal version of TLCA'0

Termination of rewrite relations on λ\lambda-terms based on Girard's notion of reducibility

In this paper, we show how to extend the notion of reducibility introduced by Girard for proving the termination of $\beta$-reduction in the polymorphic $\lambda$-calculus, to prove the termination of various kinds of rewrite relations on $\lambda$-terms, including rewriting modulo some equational theory and rewriting with matching modulo $\beta$$\eta$, by using the notion of computability closure. This provides a powerful termination criterion for various higher-order rewriting frameworks, including Klop's Combinatory Reductions Systems with simple types and Nipkow's Higher-order Rewrite Systems

12th International Workshop on Termination (WST 2012) : WST 2012, February 19–23, 2012, Obergurgl, Austria / ed. by Georg Moser

This volume contains the proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Termination (WST 2012), to be held February 19–23, 2012 in Obergurgl, Austria. The goal of the Workshop on Termination is to be a venue for presentation and discussion of all topics in and around termination. In this way, the workshop tries to bridge the gaps between different communities interested and active in research in and around termination. The 12th International Workshop on Termination in Obergurgl continues the successful workshops held in St. Andrews (1993), La Bresse (1995), Ede (1997), Dagstuhl (1999), Utrecht (2001), Valencia (2003), Aachen (2004), Seattle (2006), Paris (2007), Leipzig (2009), and Edinburgh (2010). The 12th International Workshop on Termination did welcome contributions on all aspects of termination and complexity analysis. Contributions from the imperative, constraint, functional, and logic programming communities, and papers investigating applications of complexity or termination (for example in program transformation or theorem proving) were particularly welcome. We did receive 18 submissions which all were accepted. Each paper was assigned two reviewers. In addition to these 18 contributed talks, WST 2012, hosts three invited talks by Alexander Krauss, Martin Hofmann, and Fausto Spoto

On the confluence of lambda-calculus with conditional rewriting

The confluence of untyped \lambda-calculus with unconditional rewriting is now well un- derstood. In this paper, we investigate the confluence of \lambda-calculus with conditional rewriting and provide general results in two directions. First, when conditional rules are algebraic. This extends results of M\"uller and Dougherty for unconditional rewriting. Two cases are considered, whether \beta-reduction is allowed or not in the evaluation of conditions. Moreover, Dougherty's result is improved from the assumption of strongly normalizing \beta-reduction to weakly normalizing \beta-reduction. We also provide examples showing that outside these conditions, modularity of confluence is difficult to achieve. Second, we go beyond the algebraic framework and get new confluence results using a restricted notion of orthogonality that takes advantage of the conditional part of rewrite rules

Computability Closure: Ten Years Later

The notion of computability closure has been introduced for proving the termination of higher-order rewriting with first-order matching by Jean-Pierre Jouannaud and Mitsuhiro Okada in a 1997 draft which later served as a basis for the author's PhD. In this paper, we show how this notion can also be used for dealing with beta-normalized rewriting with matching modulo beta-eta (on patterns \`a la Miller), rewriting with matching modulo some equational theory, and higher-order data types (types with constructors having functional recursive arguments). Finally, we show how the computability closure can easily be turned into a reduction ordering which, in the higher-order case, contains Jean-Pierre Jouannaud and Albert Rubio's higher-order recursive path ordering and, in the first-order case, is equal to the usual first-order recursive path ordering