English

On the relation between size-based termination and semantic labelling

Logic in Computer Science 2009-06-24 v1

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between two independently developed termination techniques. On the one hand, sized-types based termination (SBT) uses types annotated with size expressions and Girard's reducibility candidates, and applies on systems using constructor matching only. On the other hand, semantic labelling transforms a rewrite system by annotating each function symbol with the semantics of its arguments, and applies to any rewrite system. First, we introduce a simplified version of SBT for the simply-typed lambda-calculus. Then, we give new proofs of the correctness of SBT using semantic labelling, both in the first and in the higher-order case. As a consequence, we show that SBT can be extended to systems using matching on defined symbols (e.g. associative functions).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0906.4173,
  title  = {On the relation between size-based termination and semantic labelling},
  author = {Frédéric Blanqui and Cody Roux},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.4173},
  year   = {2009}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:16:44.327Z