Higher inductive-inductive types (HIITs) generalize inductive types of dependent type theories in two ways. On the one hand they allow the simultaneous definition of multiple sorts that can be indexed over each other. On the other hand they support equality constructors, thus generalizing higher inductive types of homotopy type theory. Examples that make use of both features are the Cauchy real numbers and the well-typed syntax of type theory where conversion rules are given as equality constructors. In this paper we propose a general definition of HIITs using a small type theory, named the theory of signatures. A context in this theory encodes a HIIT by listing the constructors. We also compute notions of induction and recursion for HIITs, by using variants of syntactic logical relation translations. Building full categorical semantics and constructing initial algebras is left for future work. The theory of HIIT signatures was formalised in Agda together with the syntactic translations. We also provide a Haskell implementation, which takes signatures as input and outputs translation results as valid Agda code.
Quotient inductive-inductive types (QIITs) generalise inductive types in two ways: a QIIT can have more than one sort and the later sorts can be indexed over the previous ones. In addition, equality constructors are also allowed. We work in a setting with uniqueness of identity proofs, hence we use the term QIIT instead of higher inductive-inductive type. An example of a QIIT is the well-typed (intrinsic) syntax of type theory quotiented by conversion. In this paper first we specify finitary QIITs using a domain-specific type theory which we call the theory of signatures. The syntax of the theory of signatures is given by a QIIT as well. Then, using this syntax we show that all specified QIITs exist and they have a dependent elimination principle. We also show that algebras of a signature form a category with families (CwF) and use the internal language of this CwF to show that dependent elimination is equivalent to initiality.