An intensional model for the programming language PCF is described, in which the types of PCF are interpreted by games, and the terms by certain "history-free" strategies. This model is shown to capture definability in PCF. More precisely, every compact strategy in the model is definable in a certain simple extension of PCF. We then introduce an intrinsic preorder on strategies, and show that it satisfies some remarkable properties, such that the intrinsic preorder on function types coincides with the pointwise preorder. We then obtain an order-extensional fully abstract model of PCF by quotienting the intensional model by the intrinsic preorder. This is the first syntax-independent description of the fully abstract model for PCF. (Hyland and Ong have obtained very similar results by a somewhat different route, independently and at the same time.) We then consider the effective version of our model, and prove a Universality Theorem: every element of the effective extensional model is definable in PCF. Equivalently, every recursive strategy is definable up to observational equivalence.

Linear logic is not an alternative logic; it should rather be seen as an extension of usual logic. Since there is no hope to modify the extant classical or intuitionistic connectives 1, linear logic introduces new connectives. 1.1.1 Exponentials: actions vs situations Classical and intuitionistic logics deal with stable truths: if A and A ⇒ B, then B, but A still holds. This is perfect in mathematics, but wrong in real life, since real implication is causal. A causal implication cannot be iterated since the conditions are modified after its use; this process of modification of the premises (conditions) is known in physics as reaction. For instance, if A is to spend $1 on a pack of cigarettes and B is to get them, you lose $1 in this process, and you cannot do it a second time. The reaction here was that $1 went out of your pocket. The first objection to that view is that there are in mathematics, in real life, cases where reaction does not exist or can be neglected: think of a lemma which is forever true, or of a Mr. Soros, who has almost an infinite amount of dollars.

ion for the Lazy -calculus Samson Abramsky Guy McCusker Department of Computing Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine 180 Queen's Gate London SW7 2BZ United Kingdom Abstract We define a category of games G, and its extensional quotient E . A model of the lazy -calculus, a type-free functional language based on evaluation to weak head normal form, is given in G, yielding an extensional model in E . This model is shown to be fully abstract with respect to applicative simulation. This is, so far as we know, the first purely semantic construction of a fully abstract model for a reflexively-typed sequential language. 1 Introduction Full Abstraction is a key concept in programming language semantics [9, 12, 23, 26]. The ingredients are as follows. We are given a language L, with an `observational preorder' - on terms in L such that P - Q means that every observable property of P is also satisfied by Q; and a denotational model MJ\DeltaK. The model M is then said to be f...

Sieber has described a model of PCF consisting of continuous functions that are invariant under certain (finitary) logical relations, and shown that it is fully abstract for closed terms of up to third-order types. We show that one may achieve full abstraction at all types using a form of "Kripke logical relations" introduced by Jung and Tiuryn to characterize -definability. To appear in Information and Computation. (Accepted, October 1994) Supported by NSF grant CCR-92110829. 1 Introduction The nature of sequential functional computation has fascinated computer scientists ever since Scott remarked on a curious incompleteness phenomenon when he introduced LCF (Logic for Computable Functions) and its continuous function model in 1969 (Scott, 1993). Scott noted that although the functionals definable by terms in PCF---the term language of LCF---admitted a sequential evaluation strategy, there were functions in the model that seemed to require a parallel evaluation strategy. "Sequen...

We present the general theory of the method of glueing and associated technique of orthogonality for constructing categorical models of all the structure of linear logic: in particular we treat the exponentials in detail. We indicate simple applications of the methods and show that they cover familiar examples. 1

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We present a language and semantics-independent, compositional and inductive method for specifying formal semantics or semantic properties of programs in equivalent fixpoint, equational, constraint, closure-condition, rule-based and game-theoretc form. The definitional method is obtained by extending set-theoretic definitions in the context of partial orders. It is parameterized by the language syntax, by the semantic domains and by the semantic transformers corresponding to atomic and compound program components. The definitional method is shown to be preserved by abstract interpretation in either fixpoint, equational, constraint, closure-condition, rule-based or game-theoretic form. The features common to all possible instantiations are factored out thus allowing for results of general scope such as well-definedness, semantic equivalence, soundness and relative completeness of abstract interpretations, etc. to be proved compositionally in a general language and semantics-independent framework.

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It is shown that the type structure of finite-type functionals associated to a combinatory algebra of partial functions from IN to IN (in the same way as the type structure of the countable functionals is associated to the partial combinatory algebra of total functions from IN to IN), is isomorphic to the type structure generated by object N (the flat domain on the natural numbers) in Ehrhard's category of "dI-domains with coherence", or his "hypercoherences". AMS Subject Classification: Primary 03D65, 68Q55 Secondary 03B40, 03B70, 03D45, 06B35 Introduction PCF , "Godel's T with unlimited recursion", was defined in Plotkin's paper [16]. It is a simply typed -calculus with a type o for integers and constants for basic arithmetical operations, definition by cases and fixed point recursion. More importantly, there is a special reduction relation attached to it which ensures (by Plotkin's "Activity Lemma") that all PCF -definable higher-type functionals have a sequential, i.e. non-paral...

Many different notions of "property of interest" and methods of verifying such properties arise naturally in programming. A general framework of "Specification Structures" is presented for combining different notions and methods in a coherent fashion. This is then applied to concurrency in the setting of Interaction Categories.