Building Specifications in an Arbitrary Institution

A set of operat ions for construct ing a lgebra ic specif icat ions in an arbi t rary logical system is presented. This builds on the f ramework provided by Goguen and Burstal l 's work on the not ion of an inst i tut ion as a formal isat ion of the concept of a logical system for wri t ing specif icat ions. We show how to introduce free variables into the sentences of an arbi t rary institution and how to add quanti f iers which bind them. We use this foundat ion to def ine a set of pr imit ive operat ions for building specif icat ions in an arb i t rary institut ion based loosely on those in the ASL kernel specif icat ion language, We examine the set of operat ions which results when the def ini t ions are instant iated in an institution of f i rs t -order logic and compare these with the operat ions found in existing specif icat ion languages. The result of instantiat ing the operat ions in an institution of part ial f i rs t -order logic is also discussed, "