The paradigm of type-based termination is explored for functional programming with recursive data types. The article introduces , a lambda-calculus with recursion, inductive types, subtyping and bounded quanti cation. Decorated type variables representing approximations of inductive types are used to track the size of function arguments and return values. The system is shown to be type safe and strongly normalizing. The main novelty is a bidirectional type checking algorithm whose soundness is established formally.

In the simply-typed lambda-calculus, a hereditary substitution replaces a free variable in a normal form r by another normal form s of type a, removing freshly created redexes on the fly. It can be defined by lexicographic induction on a and r, thus, giving rise to a structurally recursive normalizer for the simply-typed lambda-calculus. We generalize this scheme to simultaneous substitutions, preserving its simple termination argument. We further implement hereditary simultaneous substitutions in a functional programming language with sized heterogeneous inductive types, Fωb, arriving at an interpreter whose termination can be tracked by the type system of its host programming language.

Abstract. A type-based approach to termination uses sized types: an ordinal bound for the size of a data structure is stored in its type. A recursive function over a sized type is accepted if it is visible in the type system that recursive calls occur just at a smaller size. This approach is only sound if the type of the recursive function is admissible, i.e., depends on the size index in a certain way. To explore the space of admissible functions in the presence of higher-kinded data types and impredicative polymorphism, a semantics is developed where sized types are interpreted as functions from ordinals into sets of strongly normalizing terms. It is shown that upper semi-continuity of such functions is a sufficient semantical criterion for admissibility. To provide a syntactical criterion, a calculus for semi-continuous function is developed. 1

In the calculus of possibly non-wellfounded -terms, standardization is proved for a parallel notion of reduction. For this system confluence has recently been established by means of a bounding argument for the number of reductions provoked by the joining function which witnesses the confluence statement. Similarly,

Disjunctive well-foundedness (used in Terminator), size-change termination, and well-quasi-orders (used in supercompilation and term-rewrite systems) are examples of techniques that have been successfully applied to automatic proofs of program termination and online termination testing, respectively. Although these works originate in different communities, there is an intimate connection between them – they rely on closely related principles and both employ similar arguments from Ramsey theory. At the same time there is a notable absence of these techniques in programming systems based on constructive type theory. In this paper we’d like to highlight the aforementioned connection and make the core ideas widely accessible to theoreticians and Coq programmers, by offering a Coq development which culminates in some novel tools for performing induction. The benefit is nice composability properties of termination arguments at the cost of intuitive and lightweight user obligations. Inevitably, we have to present some Ramsey-like arguments: Though similar proofs are typically classical, we offer an entirely constructive development standing on the shoulders of Veldman and Bezem, and Richman and Stolzenberg. 1.