Linear higher-order pre-unification

Abstract

We develop an efficient representation and a pre-unification algorithm in the style of Huet (1975) for the linear /spl lambda/-calculus /spl lambda//sup /spl rarr//spl rArr/0&T/ which includes intuitionistic functions (/spl rarr/), linear functions (/spl rArr/), additive pairing (&), and additive unit (T). Applications lie in proof scorch, logic programming, and logical frameworks based on linear type theories. We also show that, surprisingly, a similar pre-unification algorithm does not exist for certain sublanguages.