Modularity of strong normalization in the algebraic-λ-cube

Abstract

In this paper we present the algebraic-λ-cube, an extension of Barendregt's λ-cube with first- and higher-order algebraic rewriting. We show that strong normalization is a modular property of all the systems in the algebraic-λ-cube, provided that the first-order rewrite rules are non-duplicating and the higher-order rules satisfy the general schema of Jouannaud and Okada. We also prove that local confluence is a modular property of all the systems in the algebraic-λ-cube, provided that the higher-order rules do not introduce critical pairs. This property and the strong normalization result imply the modularity of confluence.