An Action Semantics of Standard ML

Action semantics is a form of denotational semantics that is based on abstract semantic algebras rather than Scott domains and λ-notation. It allows formal descriptions of programming languages to be written that are unusually readable and modular. This paper presents an action-semantic description of Standard ML, as evidence for the claimed merits of action semantics. Milner's structural operational semantics of the same language is used as a basis for comparison.

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