FROM OPERATIONAL SEMANTICS TO DOMAIN THEORY

This paper builds domain theoretic concepts upon an operational founda tion. The basic operational theory consists of a single step reduction system from which an operational ordering and equivalence on programs are defined. The theory is then extended to include concepts from dom ain theory, including the notions of directed set, least upper bound, complete partial order, monotonicity, continuity, finite element, omeg a-algebraicity, full abstraction, and least fixed point properties. We conclude by using these concepts to construct a (strongly) fully abst ract continuous model for our language. In addition we generalize a re sult of Milner and prove the uniqueness of such models. (C) 1996 Acade mic Press. Inc.