Proof nets and the instantiation overflow property

Abstract: Instantiation overflow is the property of those second order types for which all instances of full comprehension can be deduced from instances of atomic comprehension. In other words, a type has instantiation overflow when one can type, by atomic polymorphism, "expansion terms" which realize instances of the full extraction rule applied to that type. This property was investigated in the case of the types arising from the well-known Russell-Prawitz translation of logical connectives into System F, but is not restricted to such types. Moreover, it can be related to functorial polymorphism, a well-known categorial approach to parametricity in System F. In this paper we investigate the instantiation overflow property by exploiting the representation of derivations by means of linear logic proof nets. We develop a geometric approach to instantiation overflow yielding a deeper understanding of the structure of expansion terms and Russell-Prawitz types. Our main result is a characterization of the class of types of the form $\forall XA$, where $A$ is a simple type, which enjoy the instantiation overflow property, by means of a generalization of Russell-Prawitz types.