In a previous paper we investigated the extraction of proof-theoretic properties of natural deduction derivations from their impredicative translation into System F. Our key idea was to introduce an extended equational theory for System F codifying at a syntactic level some properties found in parametric models of polymorphic type theory. A different approach to extract proof-theoretic properties of natural deduction derivations was proposed in a recent series of papers on the basis of an embedding of intuitionistic propositional logic into a (...) predicative fragment of System F, called atomic System F. In this paper we show that this approach finds a general explanation within our equational study of second-order natural deduction, and a clear semantic justification in terms of parametricity. (shrink)

It is known that there is a sound and faithful translation of the full intuitionistic propositional calculus into the atomic polymorphic system F at, a predicative calculus with only two connectives: the conditional and the second-order universal quantifier. The faithfulness of the embedding was established quite recently via a model-theoretic argument based in Kripke structures. In this paper we present a purely proof-theoretic proof of faithfulness. As an application, we give a purely proof-theoretic proof of the disjunction property of the (...) intuitionistic propositional logic in which commuting conversions are not needed. (shrink)

We show that the number-theoretic functions definable in the atomic polymorphic system are exactly the extended polynomials. Two proofs of the above result are presented: one, reducing the functions’ definability problem in ${\mathbf{F}}_{\mathbf{at}}$ to definability in the simply typed lambda calculus and the other, directly adapting Helmut Schwichtenberg’s strategy for definability in $\lambda ^{\rightarrow }$ to the atomic polymorphic setting. The uniformity granted in the polymorphic system, when compared with the simply typed lambda calculus, is emphasized.

We show that there is a purely proof-theoretic proof of the Rasiowa–Harrop disjunction property for the full intuitionistic propositional calculus ), via natural deduction, in which commuting conversions are not needed. Such proof is based on a sound and faithful embedding of \ into an atomic polymorphic system. This result strengthens a homologous result for the disjunction property of \ and answers a question then posed by Pierluigi Minari.

It is known that the β-conversions of the full intuitionistic propositional calculus translate into βη-conversions of the atomic polymorphic calculus Fat. Since Fat enjoys the property of strong normalization for βη-conversions, an alternative proof of strong normalization for IPC considering β-conversions can be derived. In the present article, we improve the previous result by analysing the translation of the η-conversions of the latter calculus into a technical variant of the former system. In fact, from the strong normalization of F∧at we (...) can derive the strong normalization of the full intuitionistic propositional calculus considering all the standard conversions. (shrink)

We study an alternative embedding of IPC into atomic system F whose translation of proofs is based, not on instantiation overflow, but instead on the admissibility of the elimination rules for disjunction and absurdity. As compared to the embedding based on instantiation overflow, the alternative embedding works equally well at the levels of provability and preservation of proof identity, but it produces shorter derivations and shorter simulations of reduction sequences. Lambda-terms are employed in the technical development so that the algorithmic (...) content is made explicit, both for the alternative and the original embeddings. The investigation of preservation of proof-reduction steps by the alternative embedding enables the analysis of generation of “administrative” redexes. These are the key, on the one hand, to understand the difference between the two embeddings; on the other hand, to understand whether the final word on the embedding of IPC into atomic system F has been said. (shrink)