Modules over relative monads for syntax and semantics

Abstract: We give an algebraic characterization of the syntax and semantics of a class of languages with variable binding. We introduce a notion of 2-signature: such a signature specifies not only the terms of a language, but also reduction rules on those terms. To any 2-signature $S$ we associate a category of "models" of $S$. This category has an initial object, which integrates the terms freely generated by $S$, and which is equipped with reductions according to the inequations given in $S$. We call this initial object the language generated by $S$. Models of a 2--signature are built from relative monads and modules over such monads. Through the use of monads, the models---and in particular, the initial model---come equipped with a substitution operation that is compatible with reduction in a suitable sense. The initiality theorem is formalized in the proof assistant Coq, yielding a machinery which, when fed with a 2-signature, provides the associated programming language with reduction relation and certified substitution.