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Pierre-Louis Curien, Thérèse Hardin, and Jean-Jacques Lévy. Confluence properties of weak and strong calculi of explicit substitutions. Journal of the ACM, 43(2):362-397, March 1996. [BibTeX entry]
Abstract

Categorical combinators [Curien 1986/1993; Hardin 1989; Yokouchi 1989] and more recently lambda-sigma-calculus [Abadi 1991; Hardin and Lévy 1989], have been introduced to provide an explicit treatment of substitutions in the lambda-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], Harding [1989], Abadi [1991], and Hardin and Lévy [1989] are the following:

  1. We present a confluent weak calculus of substitutions, where no variable clashes can be feared;
  2. We sove a conjecture raised in Abadi [1991]: lambda-sigma-calculus is not confluent (it is confluent on ground terms only).
This unfortunate result is ``repaired'' by presenting a confluent version of the lambda-sigma-calculus, named the lambdaEnv-calculus in Hardin and Lévy [1989], called here the confluent lambda-sigma-calculus.

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Categories and Subject Descriptors: F.3.2 [Logics and Meanings of Programs]: Semantics of Programming Languages -- operational semantics; F.3.3 [Logics and Meanings of Programs]: Studies of Program Constructs -- functional constructs; F.4.1 [Mathematical Logic and Formal Languages]: Mathematical Logic -- lambda calenders and related systems

General Terms: Languages, Theory

Additional Key Words and Phrases: Confluency, explicit substitutions

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