Termination of Term Rewriting by Semantic Labelling

A new kind of transformation of TRS's is proposed, depending on a choice for a model for the TRS. The labelled TRS is obtained from the original one by labelling operation symbols, possibly creating extra copies of some rules. This construction has the remarkable property that the labelled TRS is terminating if and only if the original TRS is terminating. Although the labelled version has more operation symbols and may have more rules (sometimes infinitely many), termination is often easier to prove for the labelled TRS than for the original one. This provides a new technique for proving termination, making classical techniques like RPO and polynomial interpretations applicable for non-simplifying TRS's.