nLab weak type theory

Idea

Weak type theory or propositional type theory is a dependent type theory without judgmental conversion; all the computation rules/$\beta$-conversion rules and uniqueness rules/$\eta$-conversion rules for types use identity types instead of judgmental equality. As a result, the results in weak type theory are more general than in models which use judgmental equality for computational and uniqueness rules, since judgmental equality implies typal equality, while the converse isn’t necessarily the case.

Formally, weak type theories come into two general versions:

• Dependent type theories which do not have judgmental equality and its structural rules. Instead, definitions of types and terms are made using identifications or equivalences of types. See objective type theory for more details on this.

• Dependent type theories which do have judgmental equality and its structural rules, and thus definitions of types and terms are still made using judgmental equality. However, in addition to the congruence rules for judgmental equality for the formation rules, introduction rules, and elimination rules of each type former, there are additional congruence rules for the computation and uniqueness rules, since the conversion rules are represented by the structure of an identification rather than judgmental equality, and thus this structure has to be preserved across judgmental equality.

The latter includes weak versions of Martin-Löf type theory, cubical type theory, and observational type theory, as well as extensions thereof such as type theory with shapes and simplicial type theory. Hypothetically, the latter would also be seen in proof assistants, where the base programming language used to implement the weak type theory, such as Coq or Agda, already has a judgmental equality.

A hybrid of weak and non-weak type theories can occur in two-level type theory and variants thereof like Homotopy Type System, where one level has weak types and the other one has strict types.

Open problems

There are plenty of questions which are currently unresolved in weak type theory. Van der Berg and Besten listed the following problems in the context of objective type theory, but equally this applies to any weak type theory:

• Does univalence imply function extensionality for types in the universe in weak type theory?

• Is (the homotopy type theory based upon) Martin-Löf type theory conservative over (the homotopy type theory based upon) weak Martin-Löf type theory?

• How much of the HoTT book could be done in weak type theory?

• Does weak type theory have homotopy canonicity and normalization?

Other problems include

• What is the categorical semantics of the homotopy type theory based upon weak type theory, with all higher inductive types and weakly Tarski univalent universes?

• Is weak function extensionality equivalent to function extensionality in weak type theory?

• Does product extensionality hold in weak type theory? Namely, given types $A$ and $B$ and elements $a:A \times B$ and $b:A \times B$, is the canonical function $\mathrm{idtoprojectionids}:(a =_{A \times B} b) \to (\pi_1(a) \simeq \pi_1(b)) \times (\pi_2(a) \simeq \pi_2(b))$ an equivalence of types?

• Is function extensionality still provable in weak cubical type theory?

See also open problems in homotopy type theory

See also

• dependent type theory

References

The original paper on weak type theory, in the context of objective type theory:

• Benno van den Berg, Martijn den Besten, Quadratic type checking for objective type theory (arXiv:2102.00905)

Talks at Strength of Weak Type Theory, hosted by DutchCATS:

• Daniël Otten, Models for Propositional Type Theory (11 May 2023) [slides pdf]

• Théo Winterhalter, A conservative and constructive translation from extensional type theory to weak type theory, 11 May 2023. (slides)

• Sam Speight, Higher-Dimensional Realizability for Intensional Type Theory, 11 May 2023. (slides)

• Matteo Spadetto, Weak type theories: a conservativity result for homotopy elementary types (12 May 2023) [slides pdf]

• Benno van den Berg, Towards homotopy canonicity for propositional type theory, 12 May 2023. (slides)

• Rafaël Bocquet, Towards coherence theorems for equational extensions of type theories, 12 May 2023. (slides)

Project to convert extensional type theory to weak type theory:

• Github, ett-to-wtt