A Finite Equational Axiomatization of the Functional Algebras for the Lambda Calculus

Abstract

A lambda theory satisfies an equation between contexts, where a context is a λ -term with some “holes” in it, if all the instances of the equation fall within the lambda theory. In the main result of this paper it is shown that the equations (between contexts) valid in every lambda theory have an explicit finite equational axiomatization. The variety of algebras determined by the above equational theory is characterized as the class of isomorphic images of functional lambda abstraction algebras. These are algebras of functions and naturally arise as the “coordinatizations” of environment models or lambda models, the natural combinatory models of the lambda calculus. The main result of this paper is also applied to obtain a completeness theorem for the infinitary lambda calculus recently introduced by Berarducci.