Let E be a first-order equational theory. A translation of typed higher-order E-unification problems into a typed combinatory logic framework is presented and justified. The case in which E admits presentation as a convergent term rewriting system is treated in detail: in this situation, a modification of ordinary narrowing is shown to be a complete method for enumerating higher-order E-unifiers. In fact, we treat a more general problem, in which the types of terms contain type variables. 1 Introduction Investigation of the interaction between first-order and higher-order equational reasoning has emerged as an active line of research. The collective import of a recent series of papers, originating with [Bre88] and including (among others) [Bar90], [BG91a], [BG91b], [Dou92], [JO91] and [Oka89], is that when various typed -calculi are enriched by first-order equational theories, the validity problem is well-behaved, and furthermore that the respective computational approaches to ...

We present an algorithm for unification in the simply typed lambda calculus which enumerates complete sets of unifiers using a finitely branching search space. In fact, the types of terms may contain type-variables, so that a solution may involve typesubstitution as well as term-substitution. the problem is first translated into the problem of unification with respect to extensional equality in combinatory logic, and the algorithm is defined in terms of transformations on systems of combinatory terms. These transformations are based on a new method (itself based on systems) for deciding extensional equality between typed combinatory logic terms. 1 Introduction This paper develops a new algorithm for higher-order unification. A higher-order unification problem is specified by two terms F and G of the explicitly simply typed lambda calculus LC; a solution is a substitution oe such that oeF = fij oeG. We will always assume the extensionality axiom j in this paper. In fact we tre...

. We show how to reduce the unification problem modulo fij- conversion and a first-order equational theory E, into a first-order unification problem in a union of two non-disjoint equational theories including E and a calculus of explicit substitutions. A rule-based unification procedure in this combined theory is described and may be viewed as an extension of the one initially designed by G. Dowek, T. Hardin and C. Kirchner for performing unification of simply typed -terms in a first-order setting via the oe-calculus of explicit substitutions. Additional rules are used to deal with the interaction between E and oe. 1 Introduction Unification modulo an equational theory plays an important role in automated deduction and in logic programming systems. For example, Prolog[NM88] is based on higher-order unification, ie. unification modulo the fij-conversion. In order to design more expressive higher-order logic programming systems enhanced with a first-order equational theory E,...

. Higher-order E-unification, i.e. the problem of finding substitutions that make two simply typed -terms equal modulo fi or fij- equivalence and a given equational theory, is undecidable. We propose to rigidify it, to get a resource-bounded decidable unification problem (with arbitrary high bounds), providing a complete higher-order E-unification procedure. The techniques are inspired from Gallier's rigid E-unification and from Dougherty and Johann's use of combinatory logic to solve higher-order E-unification problems. We improve their results by using general equational theories, and by defining optimizations such as higherorder rigid E-preunification, where flexible terms are used, gaining much efficiency, as in the non-equational case due to Huet. 1 Introduction Higher-order E-unification is the problem of finding complete sets of unifiers of two simply typed -terms modulo fi or fij-equivalence, and modulo an equational theory E . This problem has applications in higher-order a...