scholarly journals A unified treatment of syntax with binders

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 614-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLAS POUILLARD ◽  
FRANÇOIS POTTIER

AbstractAtoms and de Bruijn indices are two well-known representation techniques for data structures that involve names and binders. However, using either technique, it is all too easy to make a programming error that causes one name to be used where another was intended. We propose an abstract interface to names and binders that rules out many of these errors. This interface is implemented as a library in Agda. It allows defining and manipulating term representations in nominal style and in de Bruijn style. The programmer is not forced to choose between these styles: on the contrary, the library allows using both styles in the same program, if desired. Whereas indexing the types of names and terms with a natural number is a well-known technique to better control the use of de Bruijn indices, we index types with worlds. Worlds are at the same time more precise and more abstract than natural numbers. Via logical relations and parametricity, we are able to demonstrate in what sense our library is safe, and to obtain theorems for free about world-polymorphic functions. For instance, we prove that a world-polymorphic term transformation function must commute with any renaming of the free variables. The proof is entirely carried out in Agda.

Author(s):  
Øystein Linnebo

How are the natural numbers individuated? That is, what is our most basic way of singling out a natural number for reference in language or in thought? According to Frege and many of his followers, the natural numbers are cardinal numbers, individuated by the cardinalities of the collections that they number. Another answer regards the natural numbers as ordinal numbers, individuated by their positions in the natural number sequence. Some reasons to favor the second answer are presented. This answer is therefore developed in more detail, involving a form of abstraction on numerals. Based on this answer, a justification for the axioms of Dedekind–Peano arithmetic is developed.


1981 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 675-760
Author(s):  
Grażyna Mirkowska

The aim of propositional algorithmic logic is to investigate the properties of program connectives. Complete axiomatic systems for deterministic as well as for nondeterministic interpretations of program variables are presented. They constitute basic sets of tools useful in the practice of proving the properties of program schemes. Propositional theories of data structures, e.g. the arithmetic of natural numbers and stacks, are constructed. This shows that in many aspects PAL is close to first-order algorithmic logic. Tautologies of PAL become tautologies of algorithmic logic after replacing program variables by programs and propositional variables by formulas. Another corollary to the completeness theorem asserts that it is possible to eliminate nondeterministic program variables and replace them by schemes with deterministic atoms.


10.37236/8579 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Gittenberger ◽  
Isabella Larcher

We consider two special subclasses of lambda-terms that are restricted by a bound on the number of abstractions between a variable and its binding lambda, the so-called De-Bruijn index, or by a bound on the nesting levels of abstractions, i.e., the number of De Bruijn levels, respectively. We show that the total number of variables is asymptotically normally distributed for both subclasses of lambda-terms with mean and variance asymptotically equal to $Cn$ and $\tilde{C}n$, respectively, where the constants $C$ and $\tilde{C}$ depend on the bound that has been imposed. For the class of lambda-terms with bounded De Bruijn index we derive closed formulas for the constant. For the other class of lambda-terms that we consider, namely lambda-terms with a bounded number of De Bruijn levels, we show quantitative and distributional results on the number of variables, as well as abstractions and applications, in the different De Bruijn levels and thereby exhibit a so-called "unary profile" that attains a very interesting shape.  Our results give a combinatorial explanation of an earlier discovered strange phenomenon exhibited by the counting sequence of this particular class of lambda-terms. 


10.14311/1821 ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
L'ubomíra Balková ◽  
Aranka Hrušková

In this paper, we will first summarize known results concerning continued fractions. Then we will limit our consideration to continued fractions of quadratic numbers. The second author describes periods and sometimes the precise form of continued fractions of ?N, where N is a natural number. In cases where we have been able to find such results in the literature, we recall the original authors, however many results seem to be new.


1952 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Myhill

Martin has shown that the notions of ancestral and class-inclusion are sufficient to develop the theory of natural numbers in a system containing variables of only one type.The purpose of the present paper is to show that an analogous construction is possible in a system containing, beyond the quantificational level, only the ancestral and the ordered pair.The formulae of our system comprise quantificational schemata and anything which can be obtained therefrom by writing pairs (e.g. (x; y), ((x; y); (x; (y; y))) etc.) for free variables, or by writing ancestral abstracts (e.g. (*xyFxy) etc.) for schematic letters, or both.The ancestral abstract (*xyFxy) means what is usually meant by ; and the formula (*xyFxy)zw answers to Martin's (zw; xy)(Fxy).The system presupposes a non-simple applied functional calculus of the first order, with a rule of substitution for predicate letters; over and above this it has three axioms for the ancestral and two for the ordered pair.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 847-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL TARAU

AbstractWe describe a compact serialization algorithm mapping Prolog terms to natural numbers of bit-sizes proportional to the memory representation of the terms. The algorithm is a ‘no bit lost’ bijection, as it associates to each Prolog term a unique natural number and each natural number corresponds to a unique syntactically well-formed term.To avoid an exponential explosion resulting from bijections mapping term trees to natural numbers, we separate the symbol content and the syntactic skeleton of a term that we serialize compactly using a ranking algorithm for Catalan families.A novel algorithm for the generalized Cantor bijection between ${\mathbb{N}$ and ${\mathbb{N}$k is used in the process of assigning polynomially bounded Gödel numberings to various data objects involved in the translation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 07 (03) ◽  
pp. 579-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL POLLACK

For each natural number N, let R(N) denote the number of representations of N as a sum of two primes. Hardy and Littlewood proposed a plausible asymptotic formula for R(2N) and showed, under the assumption of the Riemann Hypothesis for Dirichlet L-functions, that the formula holds "on average" in a certain sense. From this they deduced (under ERH) that all but Oϵ(x1/2+ϵ) of the even natural numbers in [1, x] can be written as a sum of two primes. We generalize their results to the setting of polynomials over a finite field. Owing to Weil's Riemann Hypothesis, our results are unconditional.


2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Kamareddine

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