Abstract
This article proposes a compositional semantics for term rewriting systems, i.e. a semantics preserving structuring operations such as the disjoint union. The semantics is based on the categorical construct of a monad, adapting the treatment of universal algebra in category theory to term rewriting systems.
As an example, the preservation of confluence under the disjoint union of two term rewriting systems is shown, obtaining an algebraic proof of Toyama's theorem, generalised slightly to term rewriting systems introducing variables on the right-hand side of the rules.
This research was supported by EPSRC grant GR/H73103 and the COMPASS basic research working group while the author was affiliated with Edinburgh University.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Francis Borceux. Handbook of Categorical Algebra 2: Categories and Structures. Number 51 in Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
M. Barr and C. Wells. Toposes, Triples and Theories. Number 278 in Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften. Springer Verlag, 1985.
H. Ehrig and B. Mahr. Fundamentals of Algebraic Specification 1: Equations and Initial Semantics, volume 6 of EATCS Monographs on Theoretical Computer Science. Springer Verlag, 1985.
J. A. Goguen and R. Burstall. Institutions: Abstract model theory for specification and programming. Journal of the ACM, 39:95–146, 1992.
John W. Gray. Formal Category Theory: Adjointness for 2-Categories. Number 391 in Lecture Notes in Mathematics. Springer Verlag, 1974.
G. M. Kelly. Basic Concepts of Enriched Category Theory, volume 64 of LMS Lecture Note Series. Cambridge University Press, 1982.
J. W. Klop, A. Middeldorp, Y. Toyama, and R. de Vrijer. A simplified proof of Toyama's theorem. Information Processing Letters, 49:101–109, 1994.
G. M. Kelly and Ross Street. Review of the elements of 2-categories. In Category Seminar Sydney 1972/73, number 420 in Lecture Notes in Mathematics, pages 75–103. Springer Verlag, 1974.
Christoph Lüth. Compositional Categorical Term Rewriting in Structured Algebraic Specifications. PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1996. Forthcoming.
S. Mac Lane. Categories for the Working Mathematician, volume 5 of Graduate Texts in Mathematics. Springer Verlag, 1971.
Ernest G. Manes. Algebraic Theories, volume 26 of Graduate Texts in Mathematics. Springer Verlag, 1976.
Enno Ohlenbusch. On the modularity of confluence of constructor-sharing term rewriting systems. In Sophie Tison, editor, Trees in Algebra and Programming — CAAP 94, LNCS 787. Springer Verlag, April 1994.
D. Sannella and A. Tarlecki. Specifications in an arbitrary institution. Information and Computation, 76(2/3):165–210, Feb/Mar 1988.
John G. Stell. Modelling term rewriting systems by Sesqui-categories. Technical Report TR94-02, Keele Unversity, January 1994.
Y. Toyama. On the Church-Rosser property for the direct sum of term rewriting systems. Journal of the ACM, 34(1):128–143, 1987.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lüth, C. (1996). Compositional term rewriting: An algebraic proof of Toyama's theorem. In: Ganzinger, H. (eds) Rewriting Techniques and Applications. RTA 1996. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1103. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61464-8_58
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-61464-8_58
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-61464-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68596-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive