Confluence properties of weak and strong calculi of explicit substitutions

  • Authors:
  • Pierre-Louis Curien;Thé/rè/se Hardin;Jean-Jacques Lé/vy

  • Affiliations:
  • Ecole Normale Supe´/rieure, Paris, France;INRIA, Rocquencourt, France/ and Conservatoire National des Arts et Me´/tiers, Paris, France;INRIA, Rocquencourt, France

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the ACM (JACM)
  • Year:
  • 1996

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.01

Visualization

Abstract

Categorical combinators [Curien 1986/1993; Hardin 1989; Yokouchi 1989] and more recently &lgr;&sgr;-calculus [Abadi 1991; Hardin and Le´vy 1989], have been introduced to provide an explicit treatment of substitutions in the &lgr;-calculus. We reintroduce here the ingredients of these calculi in a self-contained and stepwise way, with a special emphasis on confluence properties. The main new results of the paper with respect to Curien [1986/1993], Hardin [1989], Abadi [1991], and Hardin and Le´vy [1989] are the following:(1) We present a confluent weak calculus of substitutions, where no variable clashes can be feared;(2) We solve a conjecture raised in Abadi [1991]: &lgr;&sgr;-calculus is not confluent (it is confluent on ground terms only).This unfortunate result is “repaired” by presenting a confluent version of &lgr;&sgr;-calculus, named the &lgr;Env-caldulus in Hardin and Le´vy [1989], called here the confluent &lgr;&sgr;-calculus.