Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2004
This paper proposes an operational semantics for value recursion inthe context of monadic metalanguages. Our technique for combiningvalue recursion with computational effects works uniformly forall monads.The operational nature of our approach is related to theimplementation of recursion in Scheme and its monadic version proposedby Friedman and Sabry, but it defines a different semantics and doesnot rely on assignments. When contrasted to the axiomatic approachproposed by Erkök and Launchbury, our semantics for the continuationmonad invalidates one of the axioms, adding to the evidence that thisaxiom is problematic in the presence of continuations.