On Extracting Static Semantics

We examine the problem of automatically extracting a static semantics from a language’s semantic definition. Traditional approaches require manual construction of static and dynamic semantics, followed by a proof that the two are consistent. As languages become more complex, the static analyses also become more complex, and consistency proofs have typically been challenging. We need to find techniques for automatically constructing static analyses that are provably correct. We study the issues of developing such techniques and propose avenues of research in this area. We find that significant advances are required before realizing the practical extraction of static semantics from language definitions.