2 research outputs found
Extended Initiality for Typed Abstract Syntax
Initial Semantics aims at interpreting the syntax associated to a signature
as the initial object of some category of 'models', yielding induction and
recursion principles for abstract syntax. Zsid\'o proves an initiality result
for simply-typed syntax: given a signature S, the abstract syntax associated to
S constitutes the initial object in a category of models of S in monads.
However, the iteration principle her theorem provides only accounts for
translations between two languages over a fixed set of object types. We
generalize Zsid\'o's notion of model such that object types may vary, yielding
a larger category, while preserving initiality of the syntax therein. Thus we
obtain an extended initiality theorem for typed abstract syntax, in which
translations between terms over different types can be specified via the
associated category-theoretic iteration operator as an initial morphism. Our
definitions ensure that translations specified via initiality are type-safe,
i.e. compatible with the typing in the source and target language in the
obvious sense. Our main example is given via the propositions-as-types
paradigm: we specify propositions and inference rules of classical and
intuitionistic propositional logics through their respective typed signatures.
Afterwards we use the category--theoretic iteration operator to specify a
double negation translation from the former to the latter. A second example is
given by the signature of PCF. For this particular case, we formalize the
theorem in the proof assistant Coq. Afterwards we specify, via the
category-theoretic iteration operator, translations from PCF to the untyped
lambda calculus