A categorical semantics for inductive-inductive definitions

  • Authors:
  • Thorsten Altenkirch;Peter Morris;Fredrik Nordvall Forsberg;Anton Setzer

  • Affiliations:
  • School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK;School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK;Department of Computer Science, Swansea University, UK;Department of Computer Science, Swansea University, UK

  • Venue:
  • CALCO'11 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Algebra and coalgebra in computer science
  • Year:
  • 2011

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Induction-induction is a principle for defining data types in Martin-Löf Type Theory. An inductive-inductive definition consists of a set A, together with an A-indexed family B : A → Set, where both A and B are inductively defined in such a way that the constructors for A can refer to B and vice versa. In addition, the constructors for B can refer to the constructors for A. We extend the usual initial algebra semantics for ordinary inductive data types to the inductive-inductive setting by considering dialgebras instead of ordinary algebras. This gives a new and compact formalisation of inductive-inductive definitions, which we prove is equivalent to the usual formulation with elimination rules.