I did find one paper that makes a start at such work, "Enforcing Strict Model-View Separation in Template Engines", but the theory is a little weak and it focuses on the nebulous idea of separation of model and view, as opposed to a classification of capabilities and limitations.
When I did the research for my template engine paper, that was also the most theoretically-inclined paper I could find. In fact, it was almost the only paper focusing on template languages. That entire area, of considerable importance in practice, seems to be completely ignored by computer science. My own work was more on the practical side, but its first section may be of some interest for its (sadly informal) pointing out of relationships between template engines and functional programming. The paper and the slides can be found at: http://www.idealliance.org/papers/extreme/proceedings/html/2007/Blazevic01/E... Good luck. -- Mario Blazevic mblazevic@stilo.com Stilo Corporation This message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, copying, or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient(s) please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message and any attachments.