Unique Normal Forms in Infinitary Weakly Orthogonal Term Rewriting

TL;DR

This paper advances the understanding of infinitary weakly orthogonal term rewriting systems by refining key lemmas and establishing unique normal forms and the diamond property under specific restrictions.

Contribution

It refines the Compression Lemma for weakly orthogonal TRSs without collapsing rules and proves the diamond property for infinitary developments in this context.

Findings

Refined the Compression Lemma for weakly orthogonal TRSs.

Established unique infinitary normal forms under non-collapsing conditions.

Proved the diamond property for infinitary developments in weakly orthogonal TRSs.

Abstract

The theory of finite and infinitary term rewriting is extensively developed for orthogonal rewrite systems, but to a lesser degree for weakly orthogonal rewrite systems. In this note we present some contributions to the latter case of weak orthogonality, where critial pairs are admitted provided they are trivial. We start with a refinement of the by now classical Compression Lemma, as a tool for establishing infinitary confluence, and hence the property of unique infinitary normal forms, for the case of weakly orthogonal TRSs that do not contain collapsing rewrite rules. That this restriction of collapse-freeness is crucial, is shown in a elaboration of a simple TRS which is weakly orthogonal, but has two collapsing rules. It turns out that all the usual theory breaks down dramatically. We conclude with establishing a positive fact: the diamond property for infinitary developments for weakly orthogonal TRSs, by means of a detailed analysis initiated by van Oostrom for the finite case.