Denotational semantics of a para-functional programming language

Apara-functional programming language is a functional language that has been extended with special annotations that provide an extra degree of control over parallel evaluation. Of most interest are annotations that allow one to express the dynamic mapping of a program onto a known multiprocessor topology. Since it is quite desirable to provide a precise semantics for any programming language, in this paper adenotational semantics is given for a simple para-functional programming language with mapping annotations. A precise meaning is given not only to the normalfunctional behavior of the program (i.e., the answer), but also to theoperational notion of where (i.e., on what processor) expressions are evaluated. The latter semantics is accomplished through an abstract entity called anexecution tree.This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grants DCR-8403304 and DCR-8451415, and the Department of Energy under Grant DE-FG02-86ER25012.