An Introduction to Different Approaches to Initial Semantics

Abstract

Characterizing programming languages with variable binding as initial objects, was first achieved by Fiore, Plotkin, and Turi in their seminal paper published at LICS'99. To do so, in particular to prove initiality theorems, they developed a framework based on monoidal categories, functors with strengths, and $\Sigma$-monoids. An alternative approach using modules over monads was later introduced by Hirschowitz and Maggesi, for endofunctor categories, that is, for particular monoidal categories. This approach has the advantage of providing a more general and abstract definition of signatures and models; however, no general initiality result is known for this notion of signature. Furthermore, Matthes and Uustalu provided a categorical formalism for constructing (initial) monads via Mendler-style recursion, that can also be used for initial semantics. The different approaches have been developed further in several articles. However, in practice, the literature is difficult to access, and links between the different strands of work remain underexplored. In the present work, we give an introduction to initial semantics that encompasses the three different strands. We develop a suitable "pushout" of Hirschowitz and Maggesi's framework with Fiore's, and rely on Matthes and Uustalu's formalism to provide modular proofs. For this purpose, we generalize both Hirschowitz and Maggesi's framework, and Matthes and Uustalu's formalism to the general setting of monoidal categories studied by Fiore and collaborators. Moreover, we provide fully worked out presentation of some basic instances of the literature, and an extensive discussion of related work explaining the links between the different approaches.