The Edinburgh Logical Framework (LF) provides a means to define (or present) logics. It is based on a general treatment of syntax, rules, and proofs by means of a typed -calculus with dependent types. Syntax is treated in a style similar to, but more general than, Martin-Lof's system of arities. The treatment of rules and proofs focuses on his notion of a judgement. Logics are represented in LF via a new principle, the judgements as types principle, whereby each judgement is identified with the type of its proofs. This allows for a smooth treatment of discharge and variable occurrence conditions and leads to a uniform treatment of rules and proofs whereby rules are viewed as proofs of higher-order judgements and proof checking is reduced to type checking. The practical benefit of our treatment of formal systems is that logic-independent tools such as proof editors and proof checkers can be constructed.

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this paper and the LF. In particular the idea of having an operator T : Prop ! Type appears already in De Bruijn's earlier work, as does the idea of having several judgements. The paper [24] describes the basic features of the LF. In this paper we are going to provide a broader illustration of its applicability and discuss to what extent it is successful. The analysis (of the formal presentation) of a system carried out through encoding often illuminates the system itself. This paper will also deal with this phenomenon.

An interactive theorem prover, Isabelle, is under development. In LCF, each inference rule is represented by one function for forwards proof and another (a tactic) for backwards proof. In Isabelle, each inference rule is represented by a Horn clause.

This thesis describes the implementation of ALF, which is an interactive proof editor based on Martin-Löf's type theory with explicit substitutions. ALF is a general purpose proof assistant, in which different logics can be represented. Proof objects are manipulated directly, by the usual editing operations. A partial proof is represented as an incomplete proof object, i.e., a proof object containing placeholders. A modular type/proof checking algorithm for complete proof objects is presented, and it is proved sound and complete assuming some basic meta theory properties of the substitution calculus. The algorithm is extended to handle incomplete objects in such a way that the type checking problem is reduced to a unication problem, i.e., the problem of finding instantiations to the placeholders in the object. Placeholders are represented together with their expected type and local context. We show that checking the correctness of instantiations can be localised, which means that it is e...

In Martin-Löf's type theory, general recursion is not available. The only iterating constructs are primitive recursion over natural numbers and other inductive sets. The paper describes a way to allow a general recursion operator in type theory (extended with propositions). A proof rule for the new operator is presented. The addition of the new operator will not distroy the property that all well-typed programs terminate. An advantage of the new program construct is that it is possible to separate the termination proof of the program from the proof of other properties.

This paper gives an introduction to type theory, focusing on its recent use as a logical framework for proofs and programs. The first two sections give a background to type theory intended for the reader who is new to the subject. The following presents Martin-Lof's monomorphic type theory and an implementation, ALF, of this theory. Finally, a few small tutorial examples in ALF are given.

Martin-Löf's Intuitionistic Theory of Types is becoming popular for formal reasoning about computer programs. To handle recursion schemes other than primitive recursion, a theory of well-founded relations is presented. Using primitive recursion over higher types, induction and recursion are formally derived for a large class of well-founded relations. Included are < on natural numbers, and relations formed by inverse images, addition, multiplication, and exponentiation of other relations. The constructions are given in full detail to allow their use in theorem provers for Type Theory, such as Nuprl. The theory is compared with work in the field of ordinal recursion over higher types.

Contents 1 Introduction : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 2 2 The expressive power of second order Logic : : : : : : : : : : : 3 2.1 The language of second order logic : : : : : : : : : : : : : 3 2.2 Expressing size : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 4 2.3 Defining data types : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 6 2.4 Describing processes : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 8 2.5 Expressing convergence using second order validity : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 9 2.6 Truth definitions: the analytical hierarchy : : : : : : : : 10 2.7 Inductive definitions : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 13 3 Canonical semantics of higher order logic : : : : : : : : : : : : 15 3.1 Tarskian semantics of second order logic : : : : : : : : : 15 3.2 Function and re