493 research outputs found
The Safe Lambda Calculus
Safety is a syntactic condition of higher-order grammars that constrains
occurrences of variables in the production rules according to their
type-theoretic order. In this paper, we introduce the safe lambda calculus,
which is obtained by transposing (and generalizing) the safety condition to the
setting of the simply-typed lambda calculus. In contrast to the original
definition of safety, our calculus does not constrain types (to be
homogeneous). We show that in the safe lambda calculus, there is no need to
rename bound variables when performing substitution, as variable capture is
guaranteed not to happen. We also propose an adequate notion of beta-reduction
that preserves safety. In the same vein as Schwichtenberg's 1976
characterization of the simply-typed lambda calculus, we show that the numeric
functions representable in the safe lambda calculus are exactly the
multivariate polynomials; thus conditional is not definable. We also give a
characterization of representable word functions. We then study the complexity
of deciding beta-eta equality of two safe simply-typed terms and show that this
problem is PSPACE-hard. Finally we give a game-semantic analysis of safety: We
show that safe terms are denoted by `P-incrementally justified strategies'.
Consequently pointers in the game semantics of safe lambda-terms are only
necessary from order 4 onwards
An Embedding of the BSS Model of Computation in Light Affine Lambda-Calculus
This paper brings together two lines of research: implicit characterization
of complexity classes by Linear Logic (LL) on the one hand, and computation
over an arbitrary ring in the Blum-Shub-Smale (BSS) model on the other. Given a
fixed ring structure K we define an extension of Terui's light affine
lambda-calculus typed in LAL (Light Affine Logic) with a basic type for K. We
show that this calculus captures the polynomial time function class FP(K):
every typed term can be evaluated in polynomial time and conversely every
polynomial time BSS machine over K can be simulated in this calculus.Comment: 11 pages. A preliminary version appeared as Research Report IAC CNR
Roma, N.57 (11/2004), november 200
Profinite lambda-terms and parametricity
Combining ideas coming from Stone duality and Reynolds parametricity, we
formulate in a clean and principled way a notion of profinite lambda-term
which, we show, generalizes at every type the traditional notion of profinite
word coming from automata theory. We start by defining the Stone space of
profinite lambda-terms as a projective limit of finite sets of usual
lambda-terms, considered modulo a notion of equivalence based on the finite
standard model. One main contribution of the paper is to establish that,
somewhat surprisingly, the resulting notion of profinite lambda-term coming
from Stone duality lives in perfect harmony with the principles of Reynolds
parametricity. In addition, we show that the notion of profinite lambda-term is
compositional by constructing a cartesian closed category of profinite
lambda-terms, and we establish that the embedding from lambda-terms modulo
beta-eta-conversion to profinite lambda-terms is faithful using Statman's
finite completeness theorem. Finally, we prove that the traditional Church
encoding of finite words into lambda-terms can be extended to profinite words,
and leads to a homeomorphism between the space of profinite words and the space
of profinite lambda-terms of the corresponding Church type
On Role Logic
We present role logic, a notation for describing properties of relational
structures in shape analysis, databases, and knowledge bases. We construct role
logic using the ideas of de Bruijn's notation for lambda calculus, an encoding
of first-order logic in lambda calculus, and a simple rule for implicit
arguments of unary and binary predicates. The unrestricted version of role
logic has the expressive power of first-order logic with transitive closure.
Using a syntactic restriction on role logic formulas, we identify a natural
fragment RL^2 of role logic. We show that the RL^2 fragment has the same
expressive power as two-variable logic with counting C^2 and is therefore
decidable. We present a translation of an imperative language into the
decidable fragment RL^2, which allows compositional verification of programs
that manipulate relational structures. In addition, we show how RL^2 encodes
boolean shape analysis constraints and an expressive description logic.Comment: 20 pages. Our later SAS 2004 result builds on this wor
Profinite trees, through monads and the lambda-calculus
In its simplest form, the theory of regular languages is the study of sets of
finite words recognized by finite monoids. The finiteness condition on monoids
gives rise to a topological space whose points, called profinite words, encode
the limiting behavior of words with respect to finite monoids. Yet, some
aspects of the theory of regular languages are not particular to monoids and
can be described in a general setting. On the one hand, Boja\'{n}czyk has shown
how to use monads to generalize the theory of regular languages and has given
an abstract definition of the free profinite structure, defined by codensity,
given a fixed monad and a notion of finite structure. On the other hand,
Salvati has introduced the notion of language of -terms, using
denotational semantics, which generalizes the case of words and trees through
the Church encoding. In recent work, the author and collaborators defined the
notion of profinite -term using semantics in finite sets and
functions, which extend the Church encoding to profinite words.
In this article, we prove that these two generalizations, based on monads and
denotational semantics, coincide in the case of trees. To do so, we consider
the monad of abstract clones which, when applied to a ranked alphabet, gives
the associated clone of ranked trees. This induces a notion of free profinite
clone, and hence of profinite trees. The main contribution is a categorical
proof that the free profinite clone on a ranked alphabet is isomorphic, as a
Stone-enriched clone, to the clone of profinite -terms of Church type.
Moreover, we also prove a parametricity theorem on families of semantic
elements which provides another equivalent formulation of profinite trees in
terms of Reynolds parametricity
Lecture notes on the lambda calculus
This is a set of lecture notes that developed out of courses on the lambda
calculus that I taught at the University of Ottawa in 2001 and at Dalhousie
University in 2007 and 2013. Topics covered in these notes include the untyped
lambda calculus, the Church-Rosser theorem, combinatory algebras, the
simply-typed lambda calculus, the Curry-Howard isomorphism, weak and strong
normalization, polymorphism, type inference, denotational semantics, complete
partial orders, and the language PCF.Comment: 120 pages. Added in v2: section on polymorphis
Types and forgetfulness in categorical linguistics and quantum mechanics
The role of types in categorical models of meaning is investigated. A general
scheme for how typed models of meaning may be used to compare sentences,
regardless of their grammatical structure is described, and a toy example is
used as an illustration. Taking as a starting point the question of whether the
evaluation of such a type system 'loses information', we consider the
parametrized typing associated with connectives from this viewpoint.
The answer to this question implies that, within full categorical models of
meaning, the objects associated with types must exhibit a simple but subtle
categorical property known as self-similarity. We investigate the category
theory behind this, with explicit reference to typed systems, and their
monoidal closed structure. We then demonstrate close connections between such
self-similar structures and dagger Frobenius algebras. In particular, we
demonstrate that the categorical structures implied by the polymorphically
typed connectives give rise to a (lax unitless) form of the special forms of
Frobenius algebras known as classical structures, used heavily in abstract
categorical approaches to quantum mechanics.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figure
Implicit automata in typed -calculi II: streaming transducers vs categorical semantics
We characterize regular string transductions as programs in a linear
-calculus with additives. One direction of this equivalence is proved
by encoding copyless streaming string transducers (SSTs), which compute regular
functions, into our -calculus. For the converse, we consider a
categorical framework for defining automata and transducers over words, which
allows us to relate register updates in SSTs to the semantics of the linear
-calculus in a suitable monoidal closed category. To illustrate the
relevance of monoidal closure to automata theory, we also leverage this notion
to give abstract generalizations of the arguments showing that copyless SSTs
may be determinized and that the composition of two regular functions may be
implemented by a copyless SST. Our main result is then generalized from strings
to trees using a similar approach. In doing so, we exhibit a connection between
a feature of streaming tree transducers and the multiplicative/additive
distinction of linear logic.
Keywords: MSO transductions, implicit complexity, Dialectica categories,
Church encodingsComment: 105 pages, 24 figure
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