Comprehensive parametric polymorphism : categorical models and type theory

Ghani, Neil and Nordvall Forsberg, Fredrik and Simpson, Alex; Jacobs, Bart and Löding, Christof, eds. (2016) Comprehensive parametric polymorphism : categorical models and type theory. In: International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures [FoSSaCS 2016]. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 9634 . Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 3-19. ISBN 9783662496305 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49630-5_1)

[thumbnail of Ghani-etal-FOSSACS2016-comprehensive-parametric-polymorphism-categorical-models-type-theory]
Preview
Text. Filename: Ghani_etal_FOSSACS2016_comprehensive_parametric_polymorphism_categorical_models_type_theory.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript

Download (423kB)| Preview

Abstract

This paper combines reflexive-graph-category structure for relational parametricity with fibrational models of impredicative polymorphism. To achieve this, we modify the definition of fibrational model of impredicative polymorphism by adding one further ingredient to the structure: comprehension in the sense of Lawvere. Our main result is that such comprehensive models, once further endowed with reflexive-graph-category structure, enjoy the expected consequences of parametricity. This is proved using a type-theoretic presentation of the category-theoretic structure, within which the desired consequences of parametricity are derived. The formalisation requires new techniques because equality relations are not available, and standard arguments that exploit equality need to be reworked.