Bicategorical type theory

Semantics and syntax

Journal Article (2023)
Author(s)

Benedikt Ahrens (University of Birmingham, TU Delft - Programming Languages)

P.R. North (Universiteit Utrecht)

Niels van der Weide (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)

Research Group
Programming Languages
Copyright
© 2023 B.P. Ahrens, P.R. North, Niels Van Der Weide
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960129523000312
More Info
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Publication Year
2023
Language
English
Copyright
© 2023 B.P. Ahrens, P.R. North, Niels Van Der Weide
Research Group
Programming Languages
Issue number
10
Volume number
33
Pages (from-to)
868-912
Reuse Rights

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Abstract

We develop semantics and syntax for bicategorical type theory. Bicategorical type theory features contexts, types, terms, and directed reductions between terms. This type theory is naturally interpreted in a class of structured bicategories. We start by developing the semantics, in the form of comprehension bicategories. Examples of comprehension bicategories are plentiful; we study both specific examples as well as classes of examples constructed from other data. From the notion of comprehension bicategory, we extract the syntax of bicategorical type theory, that is, judgment forms and structural inference rules. We prove soundness of the rules by giving an interpretation in any comprehension bicategory. The semantic aspects of our work are fully checked in the Coq proof assistant, based on the UniMath library.