On monadic parametricity of second-order functionals

  • Authors:
  • Andrej Bauer;Martin Hofmann;Aleksandr Karbyshev

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Ljubljana, Slovenia;Universität München, Germany;Technische Universität München, Germany

  • Venue:
  • FOSSACS'13 Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures
  • Year:
  • 2013

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

How can one rigorously specify that a given ML functional $f : (\texttt{int} \to \texttt{int}) \to \texttt{int}$ is pure, i.e., f produces no computational effects except those produced by evaluation of its functional argument? In this paper, we introduce a semantic notion of monadic parametricity for second-order functionals which is a form of purity. We show that every monadically parametric f admits a question-answer strategy tree representation. We discuss possible applications of this notion, e.g., to the verification of generic fixpoint algorithms. The results are presented in two settings: a total set-theoretic setting and a partial domain-theoretic one. All proofs are formalized by means of the proof assistant Coq.