Typed Nominal Rewriting

Abstract

Nominal terms extend first-order terms with nominal features and as such constitute a meta-language for reasoning about the named variables of an object language in the presence of meta-level variables. This article introduces a number of type systems for nominal terms of increasing sophistication and demonstrates their application in the areas of rewriting and equational reasoning. Two simple type systems inspired by Church’s simply typed lambda calculus are presented where only well-typed terms are considered to exist, over which α-equivalence is then axiomatised. The first requires atoms to be strictly annotated whilst the second explores the consequences of a more relaxed de Bruijn-style approach in the presence of atom-capturing substitution. A final type system of richer ML-like polymorphic types is then given in the style of Curry, in which elements of the term language are deemed typeable or not only subsequent to the definition of alpha-equivalence. Principal types are shown to exist and an inference algorithm given to compute them. This system is then used to define two presentations of typed nominal rewriting, one more expressive and one more efficient, the latter also giving rise to a notion of typed nominal equational reasoning.