In the context of intuitionistic sequent calculus, “naturality” means permutation-freeness (the terminology is essentially due to Mints). We study naturality in the context of the lambda-calculus with generalized applications and its multiary extension, to cover, under the Curry-Howard correspondence, proof systems ranging from natural deduction (with and without general elimination rules) to a fragment of sequent calculus with an iterable left-introduction rule, and which can still be recognized as a call-by-name lambda-calculus. In this context, naturality consists of a certain restricted use of generalized applications. We consider the further restriction obtained by the combination of naturality with normality w.r.t. the commutative conversion engendered by generalized applications. This combination sheds light on the interpretation of naturality as a vectorization mechanism, allowing a multitude of different ways of structuring lambda-terms, and the structuring of a multitude of interesting fragments of the systems under study. We also consider a relaxation of naturality, called weak naturality: this not only brings similar structural benefits, but also suggests a new “weak” system of natural deduction with generalized applications which is exempt from commutative conversions. In the end, we use all of this evidence as a stepping stone to propose a computational interpretation of generalized application (whether multiary or not, and without any restriction): it includes, alongside the argument(s) for the function, a general list – a new, very general, vectorization mechanism, that structures the continuation of the computation.

If we consider as “member” of a simple type the outcome of any successful (possibly infinite) run of bottom-up proof search that starts from the type, then several concepts of “finiteness” for simple types are possible: the finiteness of the search space, the finiteness of any member, or the finiteness of the number of finite members (in other words, the inhabitants). In this paper we show that these three concepts are instances of the same parameterized notion of finiteness, and that a single, parameterized proof shows the decidability of all of them. One instance of this result means that termination of proof search is decidable. A separate result is that emptiness is also decidable (where emptiness is absence of “members” as above, not just absence of inhabitants). This fact is an ingredient of the main decidability result, but it also has a different application, the definition of the pruned search space - the one where branches leading to failure are chopped off. We conclude with our version of König’s lemma for simple types: a simple type has an infinite member exactly when the pruned search space is infinite.

A new approach to inhabitation problems in simply typed lambda-calculus is shown, dealing with both decision and counting problems. This approach works by exploiting a representation of the search space generated by a given inhabitation problem, which is in terms of a lambda-calculus for proof search that the authors developed recently. The representation may be seen as extending the Curry–Howard representation of proofs by lambda terms. Our methodology reveals inductive descriptions of the decision problems, driven by the syntax of the proof-search expressions, and produces simple, recursive decision procedures and counting functions. These allow to predict the number of inhabitants by testing the given type for syntactic criteria. This new approach is comprehensive and robust: based on the same syntactic representation, we also derive the state-of-the-art coherence theorems ensuring uniqueness of inhabitants.

Bi-intuitionistic logic is the conservative extension of intuitionistic logic with a connective dual to implication usually called ‘exclusion’. A standard-style sequent calculus for this logic is easily obtained by extending multiple-conclusion sequent calculus for intuitionistic logic with exclusion rules dual to the implication rules (in particular, the exclusion-left rule restricts the premise to be single-assumption). However, similarly to standard-style sequent calculi for non-classical logics like S5, this calculus is incomplete without the cut rule. Motivated by the problem of proof search for propositional bi-intuitionistic logic (BiInt), various cut-free calculi with extended sequents have been proposed, including (i) a calculus of nested sequents by Goré et al., which includes rules for creation and removal of nests (called ‘nest rules’, resp. ‘unnest rules’) and (ii) a calculus of labelled sequents by the authors, derived from the Kripke semantics of BiInt, which includes ‘monotonicity rules’ to propagate truth/falsehood between accessible worlds. In this paper, we develop a proof-theoretic study of these three sequent calculi for BiInt grounded on translations between them. We start by establishing the basic meta-theory of the labelled calculus (including cut-admissibility), and use then the translations to obtain results for the other two calculi. The translation of the nested calculus into the standard-style calculus explains how the unnest rules encapsulate cuts. The translations between the labelled and the nested calculi reveal the two formats to be very close, despite the former incorporating semantic elements, and the latter being syntax-driven. Indeed, we single out (i) a labelled calculus whose sequents have a ‘label in focus’ and which includes ‘refocusing rules’ and (ii) a nested calculus with monotonicity and refocusing rules, and prove these two calculi to be isomorphic (in a bijection both at the level of sequents and at the level of derivations).

We study monadic translations of the call-by-name (cbn) and call-by-value (cbv) fragments of the classical sequent calculus ${\overline{\lambda}\mu\tilde{\mu}}$ due to Curien and Herbelin, and give modular and syntactic proofs of strong normalisation. The target of the translations is a new meta-language for classical logic, named monadic λμ. This language is a monadic reworking of Parigot's λμ-calculus, where the monadic binding is confined to commands, thus integrating the monad with the classical features. Also, its μ-reduction rule is replaced by a rule expressing the interaction between monadic binding and μ-abstraction. Our monadic translations produce very tight simulations of the respective fragments of ${\overline{\lambda}\mu\tilde{\mu}}$ within monadic λμ, with reduction steps of ${\overline{\lambda}\mu\tilde{\mu}}$ being translated in a 1–1 fashion, except for β steps, which require two steps. The monad of monadic λμ can be instantiated to the continuations monad so as to ensure strict simulation of monadic λμ within simply typed λ-calculus with β- and η-reduction. Through strict simulation, the strong normalisation of simply typed λ-calculus is inherited by monadic λμ, and then by cbn and cbv ${\overline{\lambda}\mu\tilde{\mu}}$ , thus reproving strong normalisation in an elementary syntactical way for these fragments of ${\overline{\lambda}\mu\tilde{\mu}}$ , and establishing it for our new calculus. These results extend to second-order logic, with polymorphic λ-calculus as the target, giving new strong normalisation results for classical second-order logic in sequent calculus style. CPS translations of cbn and cbv ${\overline{\lambda}\mu\tilde{\mu}}$ with the strict simulation property are obtained by composing our monadic translations with the continuations-monad instantiation. In an appendix to the paper, we investigate several refinements of the continuations-monad instantiation in order to obtain in a modular way improvements of the CPS translations enjoying extra properties like simulation by cbv β-reduction or reduction of administrative redexes at compile time.

Multiary sequent terms were originally introduced as a tool for proving termination of permutative conversions in cut-free sequent calculus. This work develops the language of multiary sequent terms into a term calculus for the computational (Curry-Howard) interpretation of a fragment of sequent calculus with cuts and cut-elimination rules. The system, called generalized multiary λ-calculus , is a rich extension of the λ-calculus where the computational content of the sequent calculus format is explained through an enlarged form of the application constructor. Such constructor exhibits the features of multiarity (the ability to form lists of arguments) and generality (the ability to prescribe a kind of continuation). The system integrates in a modular way the multiary λ-calculus and an isomorphic copy of the λ-calculus with generalized application, Λ J (in particular, natural deduction is captured internally up to isomorphism). In addition, the system: (i) comes with permutative conversion rules, whose role is to eliminate the new features of application; (ii) is equipped with reduction rules — either the μ-rule, typical of the multiary setting, or rules for cut-elimination, which enlarge the ordinary β-rule. This article establishes the metatheory of the system, with emphasis on the role of the μ-rule, and including a study of the interaction of reduction and permutative conversions.

This paper introduces $\lambda^\widehat$ , a simply typed lambda calculus supporting inductive types and recursive function definitions with termination ensured by types. The system is shown to enjoy subject reduction, strong normalisation of typable terms and to be stronger than a related system $\lambda_{\mathcal{G}}$ in which termination is ensured by a syntactic guard condition. The system can, at will, be extended to support coinductive types and corecursive function definitions also.