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First Order Linear Logic in Symmetric Monoidal Closed Categories

Simon Ambler

Abstract: There has recently been considerable interest in the development of `logical frameworks' which can represent many of the logics arising in computer science in a uniform way. Within the Edinburgh LF project, this concept is split into two components; the first being a general proof theoretic encoding of logics, and the second a uniform treatment of their model theory. This thesis forms a case study for the work on model theory.

The models of many first and higher order logics can be represented as fibred or indexed categories with certain extra structure, and this has been suggested as a general paradigm. The aim of the thesis is to test the strength and flexibility of this paradigm by studying the specific case of Girard's linear logic . It should be noted that the exact form of this logic in the first order case is not entirely certain, and the system treated here is significantly different to that considered by Girard.

To secure a good class of models, we develop a carefully restricted form of first order intuitionistic linear logic, called L_{FOLL}, in which the linearity of the logic is also reflected at the level of types. That is, the terms of the logic are given by a linear tyoe theory LTT corresponding to the algebraic idea of a symmetric monoidal closed category. The study of logic in such categories is motivated by two examples which are derived as linear analogues of presheaf topoi and Heyting valued sets respectively. We introduce the concept of a monoidal factorisation system over such categories to provide a basis for a theory of linear predicates. A monoidal factorisation system then gives rise to a structure preserving fibration between symmetric monoidal closed categories, which we term a linear doctrine. We provide a sequent calculus formulation of L_{FOLL} and show that it is both sound and complete with respect to a linear doctrine semantics.

Although the logic L_{FOLL} sits nicely within the fibred category framework, we note that it also displays some quite unexpected features which should be of interest in future work on both the categorical semantics of linear logic and model theory in the general case.

PhD Thesis - Price £8.00

LFCS report ECS-LFCS-92-194 (also published as CST-87-92)

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