In this paper, we present a framework for de ning the formal semantics of behavioral VHDL92 descriptions. We propose a complementary application of denotational and operational semantics. The static semantics is de ned by denotational means. The de nition of the dynamic semantics is based on an operational model using Interval Event Structures.

This paper gives the first truly concurrent denotational, i.e., compositional semantics for a simple, deterministic parallel language. By truly concurrent we mean the denotational model does not rely on an interleaving of concurrent actions for its definition. Thus, our semantics does not reduce parallelism to nondeterminism, as is done in the more established approaches to concurrency. We also...

Denotational descriptions are frequently presented in terms of a sequence of descriptions of programming languages of increasing complexity. We discuss a formal approach to the study of such description sequences in terms of a refinement relation, showing how the informal use made of this approach in tutorial introductions to denotational semantics may be formally justified.

We present a semantics for an applied call-by-value λ-calculus that is compositional, extensional, and elementary. We present four di‚erent views of the semantics: 1) as a relational (big-step) semantics that is not operational but instead declarative, 2) as a denotational semantics that does not use domain theory, 3) as a non-deterministic interpreter, and 4) as a variant of the intersection t...

Denotational semantics is now used widely for the formal definition of programming languages but there is a lack of appropriate tools to support language development. General purpose language implementation systems are oriented to syntax with poor support for semantics. Specialised denotational semantics based systems correspond closely to the formalism but are rendered inflexible for language ...