From the type of a polymorphic function we can derive a theorem that it satisfies. Every function of the same type satisfies the same theorem. This provides a free source of useful theorems, courtesy of Reynolds' abstraction theorem for the polymorphic lambda calculus.

Some algorithms make critical internal use of updatable state, even though their external specification is purely functional. Based on earlier work on monads, we present a way of securely encapsulating stateful computations that manipulate multiple, named, mutable objects, in the context of a non-strict, purely-functional language. The security of the encapsulation is assured by the type system, using parametricity. Intriguingly, this parametricity requires the provision of a (single) constant with a rank-2 polymorphic type. 1

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We define the notion of an inductively defined type in the Calculus of Constructions and show how inductively defined types can be represented by closed types. We show that all primitive recursive functionals over these inductively defined types are also representable. This generalizes work by Böhm & Berarducci on synthesis of functions on term algebras in the second-order polymorphic λ-calculus (F2). We give several applications of this generalization, including a representation of F2-programs in F3, along with a definition of functions reify, reflect, and eval for F2 in F3. We also show how to define induction over inductively defined types and sketch some results that show that the extension of the Calculus of Construction by induction principles does not alter the set of functions in its computational fragment, Fω. This is because a proof by induction can be realized by primitive recursion, which is already definable in Fω. 1

this paper but which have some intriguing connections to some of our results and techniques, are [32] and [20]. We believe that the concept of prelogical relation would have a beneficial impact on the presentation and understanding of their results

This paper describes a semantics of typed lambda calculi based on relations. The main mathematical tool is a category-theoretic method of sconing, also called glueing or Freyd covers. Its correspondence to logical relations is also examined. 1 Introduction Many modern programming languages feature rather sophisticated typing mechanisms. In particular, languages such as ML include polymorphic data types, which allow considerable programming flexibility. Several notions of polymorphism were introduced into computer science by Strachey [Str67], among them the important notion of parametric polymorphism. Strachey's intuitive definition is that a polymorphic function is parametric if it has a uniformly given algorithm in all types, that is, if the function's behavior is independent of the type at which the function is instantiated. Reynolds [Rey83] proposed a mathematical definition of parametric polymorphic functions by means of invariance with respect to certain relations induced by typ...

The SPECTRUM project concentrates on the process of developing well-structured, precise system specifications. Spectrum is a specification language, with a deduction calculus and a development methodology. An informal presentation of the SPECTRUM language with many examples illustrating its properties is given in [BFG+93a, BFG+93b]. The purpose of this article is to describe its formal semantics.

. A new treatment of data refinement in typed lambda calculus is proposed, based on pre-logical relations [HS99] rather than logical relations as in [Ten94], and incorporating a constructive element. Constructive data refinement is shown to have desirable properties, and a substantial example of refinement is presented. 1 Introduction Various treatments of data refinement in the context of typed lambda calculus, beginning with Tennent's in [Ten94], have used logical relations to formalize the intuitive notion of refinement. This work has its roots in [Hoa72], which proposes that the correctness of a concrete version of an abstract program be verified using an invariant on the domain of concrete values together with a function mapping concrete values (that satisfy the invariant) to abstract values. In algebraic terms, what is required is a homomorphism from a subalgebra of the concrete algebra to the abstract algebra. A strictly more general method is to take a homomorphic relatio...

. Lambda definability is characterized in categorical models of simply typed lambda calculus with type variables. A category-theoretic framework known as glueing or sconing is used to extend the Jung-Tiuryn characterization of lambda definability [JuT93], first to ccc models, and then to categorical models of the calculus with type variables. Logical relations are now a well-established tool for studying the semantics of various typed lambda calculi. The main lines of research are focused in two areas, the first of which strives for an understanding of Strachey's notion of parametric polymorphism. The main idea is that a parametricly polymorphic function acts independently from the types to which its type variables are instantiated, and that this uniformity may be captured by imposing a relational structure on the types [OHT93, MSd93, MaR91, Wad89, Rey83, Str67]. The other line of research concerns lambda definability and the full abstraction problem for various models of languag...

A polymorphic function is parametric if it has uniform behavior for all type parameters. This property is useful when writing, reasoning about, and compiling functional programs. We show how to syntactically define and reason about parametricity in a language with intersection types and bounded polymorphism. Within this framework, parametricity is subtyping, and reasoning about parametricity becomes reasoning about the well-typedness of terms. This work also demonstrates the expressiveness of languages that combine intersection types and bounded polymorphism. 1 Introduction A polymorphic function is parametric if it uses the same algorithm regardless of which type parameter is instantiated. As a consequence, it has a uniform behavior over all type parameters, in the sense that for any related inputs, the function produces related outputs. Let us look at an example. Consider the polymorphic "doubling" function double = ø : f ø!ø : x ø : f (fx) : 8ø: (ø!ø )!(ø!ø ) : By passing int and...