Abstract. We give a semantic footing to the fold/build syntax of programming with inductive types, covering shortcut deforestation, based on a universal property. Specifically, we give a semantics for inductive types based on limits of algebra structure forgetting functors and show that it is equivalent to the usual initial algebra semantics. We also give a similar semantic account of the augment generalization of build and of the unfold/destroy syntax of coinductive types. 1