Basic Category Theory for Models of Syntax

Abstract

These notes form the basis of four lectures given at the Summer School on Generic Programming, Oxford, UK, which took place during August 2002. The aims of the notes are to provide an introduction to very elementary category theory, and to show how such category theory can be used to provide both abstract and concrete mathematical models of syntax. Much of the material is now standard, but some of the ideas which are used in the modeling of syntax involving variable binding are quite new. It is assumed that readers..