Bialgebraic semantics, invented a decade ago by Turi and Plotkin, is an approach to formal reasoning about well-behaved structural operational specifications. An extension of algebraic and coalgebraic methods, it abstracts from concrete notions of syntax and system behaviour, thus treating various kinds of operational descriptions in a uniform fashion. In this talk, the current state of the art in the area of bialgebraic semantics is presented, and its prospects for the future are sketched. In particular, a combination of basic bialgebraic techniques with a categorical approach to modal logic is described, as an abstract approach to proving compositionality by decomposing modal logics over structural operational specifications. Keywords:

Bialgebraic semantics, invented a decade ago by Turi and Plotkin, is an approach to formal reasoning about well-behaved structural operational semantics (SOS). An extension of algebraic and coalgebraic methods, it abstracts from concrete notions of syntax and system behaviour, thus treating various kinds of operational descriptions in a uniform fashion. In this paper, bialgebraic semantics is combined with a coalgebraic approach to modal logic in a novel, general approach to proving the compositionality of process equivalences for languages defined by structural operational semantics. To prove compositionality, one provides a notion of behaviour for logical formulas, and defines an SOS-like specification of modal operators which reflects the original SOS specification of the language. This approach can be used to define SOS congruence formats as well as to prove compositionality for specific languages and equivalences. Key words: structural operational semantics, coalgebra, bialgebra, modal logic, congruence format 1