---
title: "Grundlagen der kombinatorischen Logik"
authors:
  - "Haskell B. Curry"
year: 1930
venue: "American Journal of Mathematics"
arxiv: null
doi: "10.2307/2370619"
source: "https://doi.org/10.2307/2370619"
topics:
  - combinatory-logic
  - curry
  - lambda
seed_rank: 497
seed_batch: "foundations-greats-2026-08-13"
reviewed: "2026-08-13"
pool: "maths-foundations"
relevance_score: 10
lineage: foundations-of-computing
cites:
  - title: "Über die Bausteine der mathematischen Logik"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01458017"
    year: 1924
    doi: "10.1007/BF01458017"
see:
  - "496-uber-die-bausteine-der-mathematischen-logik"
---

# Grundlagen der kombinatorischen Logik

## One-sentence takeaway

Curry's 1930 *American Journal of Mathematics* paper turns Schönfinkel's combinators into a systematic foundation — illative combinatory logic — in which application and a few primitive combinators replace bound variables.

## Why it matters here

Together with Schönfinkel and Church, this is the variable-free/functional spine behind modern FP semantics and the later Curry–Howard reading of types.

## Key ideas

- Combinators are primitive; λ-abstraction is recoverable sugar via bracket abstraction.
- Illative combinatory logic aims to found mathematics, not merely to rewrite terms.
- Parallel to Church's contemporaneous λ-calculus rather than a derivative of it.
- Seeds the functionality concept developed in Curry 1934 and, much later, principal-type algorithms.

## Caveats

## Links

- DOI: [10.2307/2370619](https://doi.org/10.2307/2370619)