arXiv2026
Many kinds of generalised syntax, including internal categories, T-categories or polynomial monads, arise as monads in bicategories of a certain flavour: maps are some kind of span, and composition is some kind of pullback. We explain the pattern behind these similarities: each bicategory is stitched together from two simpler pieces by a distributive law, where the distributivity is governed by pullback. A key novelty is in the kind of distributive law we consider; where Rosebrugh and Wood considered distributive laws between categories, we instead consider pseudo-distributive laws between double categories. A key construction, drawing on work of Weber, obtains such a distributive law from a so-called co-crossed double category: one whose codomain functor is a fibration, and whose cartesian cells are stable under horizontal composition. We show the horizontal Kleisli double category of a monad T is co-crossed just when T is cartesian, and that the composite double category recovers T-spans; that the double category associated to an identity-on-objects functor is co-crossed just when that functor is a calibration in the sense of Bénabou; and that Street's calibrated bicategories yield co-crossed double categories in a similar manner, recovering the double category of polynomials of Gambino--Kock.