Dependent Multiplicities in Dependent Linear Type Theory
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
Jul 11, 2025
Abstract
We present a novel dependent linear type theory in which the multiplicity of
some variable - i.e., the number of times the variable can be used in a program
- can depend on other variables. This allows us to give precise resource
annotations to many higher-order functions that cannot be adequately typed in
any other system. Inspired by the Dialectica translation, our typing discipline
is obtained by embedding linear logic into dependent type theory and specifying
how the embedded logic interacts with the host theory. We can then use a
standard natural numbers type to obtain a quantitative typing system with
dependent multiplicities. We characterise the semantics for our theory as a
combination of standard models of dependent type theory and linear logic. Our
system can be added to any dependently typed language, which we demonstrate
with an implementation in Agda.