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Binding

We will briefly introduce the concept of binding. To describe binding, we need definitions for bound variables, free variables, and substitution for free variables. Informally, the -term has a binding occurrence of the variable , and the scope of is : Any occurrence of in is bound. Note that binding occurs for the smallest scope, eg. in , the in the body of is bound by that binding occurrence of rather than the binding occurrence in the outer -expression.

A free variable is one that is not bound.

The substitution of for a free variable in is denoted by . Informally, any free occurrence of in is replaced by . It is important, however, that no free variable of becomes bound in .