English

A completeness result for a realisability semantics for an intersection type system

Logic 2009-05-05 v1

Abstract

In this paper we consider a type system with a universal type ω\omega where any term (whether open or closed, β\beta-normalising or not) has type ω\omega. We provide this type system with a realisability semantics where an atomic type is interpreted as the set of λ\lambda-terms saturated by a certain relation. The variation of the saturation relation gives a number of interpretations to each type. We show the soundness and completeness of our semantics and that for different notions of saturation (based on weak head reduction and normal β\beta-reduction) we obtain the same interpretation for types. Since the presence of ω\omega prevents typability and realisability from coinciding and creates extra difficulties in characterizing the interpretation of a type, we define a class U+{\mathbb U}^+ of the so-called positive types (where ω\omega can only occur at specific positions). We show that if a term inhabits a positive type, then this term is β\beta-normalisable and reduces to a closed term. In other words, positive types can be used to represent abstract data types. The completeness theorem for U+{\mathbb U}^+ becomes interesting indeed since it establishes a perfect equivalence between typable terms and terms that inhabit a type. In other words, typability and realisability coincide on U+{\mathbb U}^+. We give a number of examples to explain the intuition behind the definition of U+{\mathbb U}^+ and to show that this class cannot be extended while keeping its desired properties.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.0354,
  title  = {A completeness result for a realisability semantics for an intersection type system},
  author = {Fairouz Kamareddine and Karim Nour},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.0354},
  year   = {2009}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:57:51.762Z