# nLab explicit substitution

Explicit substitutions

# Explicit substitutions

## Idea

Ordinary substitution is a meta-level notion, i.e. an operation on syntax. By contrast, explicit substitutions incorporate a notion of substitution as part of a syntax.

## Definition/Example

A paradigmatic (and in some sense universal) example is given by adding explicit substitutions to simply typed lambda calculus. For this we add a new term constructor

$M\langle x\coloneqq N\rangle$

denoting internally “the substitution of $N$ for $x$ in $M$”. That this is a term constructor means, for instance, that $x\langle x\coloneqq y\rangle$ is a term distinct from $y$; whereas for the ordinary notion of substitution as an operation, $x[x\coloneqq y]$ would be a notation for the result of the operation of substituting the term $y$ for the variable $x$ in the term $x$, which is precisely the term $y$.

The relation between $x\langle x\coloneqq y\rangle$ and $y$ is recovered by modifying the reduction relation. We modify the usual beta-reduction rule $(\lambda x.M)(N) \to M[x\coloneqq N]$ to use an explict substitution instead:

$(\lambda x.M)(N) \to M\langle x\coloneqq N\rangle$

and then give reduction rules that mimic the inductive definition of the usual operation of substitution on terms:

\begin{aligned} x\langle x\coloneqq N\rangle &\to N\\ y \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle &\to y \quad (x\neq y)\\ (M_1 M_2)\langle x\coloneqq N\rangle &\to (M_1 \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle)(M_2 \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle) \\ (\lambda y.M)\langle x\coloneqq N\rangle &\to \lambda y. (M\langle x\coloneqq N\rangle) \quad (x\neq y \;\text{and}\; y \;\text{not free in}\; N) \end{aligned}

(We are being somewhat cavalier about variables; one can also implement explicit substitutions using de Bruijn indices?.)

## Combining substitutions and strong normalization

Note that there is no rule for reducing a term of the form $(M \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle) \langle y\coloneqq P\rangle$. Instead we have to first reduce $M \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle$ until its “head” is no longer an explicit substitution, and then we can apply reduction rules for the “outer” substitution $\langle y\coloneqq P\rangle$. We might be tempted to assert a rule such as

$(M \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle) \langle y\coloneqq P\rangle \to (M\langle y\coloneqq P\rangle) \langle x\coloneqq N\langle y\coloneqq P\rangle \rangle$

but such a rule is undesirable because it destroys the strong normalization? property of the reduction system: although every term still can be reduced to a normal form, there are also infinite reduction sequences that simply interchange pairs of substitutions forever.

One might hope that this could be avoided by introducing “explicit simultaneous substitutions” with a reduction rule

$(M \langle x\coloneqq N\rangle) \langle y\coloneqq P\rangle \to M \langle x\coloneqq N, y\coloneqq P\rangle.$

Apparently for a long time it was hoped that this would work, but Mellies showed that it doesn’t: explicit simultaneous substitutions with a rule of this sort also yield infinite reduction sequences. Note that Mellies worked with a de Bruijn version, so his rules look somewhat different; a version of the counterexample using named variables can be found in Bloo-Rose, along with a proof that without any way to “combine substitutions” strong normalization is preserved.

## References

• Paul-André Melliès, Typed $\lambda$-calculi with explicit substitution may not terminate. In M. Dezani (ed.), Int. Conf. on Typed Lambda Calculus and Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1995.

• Roel Bloo and Kristoffer H. Rose, Preservation of Strong Normalisation in Named Lambda Calculi with Explicit Substitution and Garbage Collection. In CSN-95: Computer Science in the Netherlands 1995, citeseer

Last revised on November 27, 2018 at 00:55:32. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.