Hello, I have a question regarding type family signatures. Consider the following type family: type family Fam a :: * Then I define a GADT that takes such a value and wraps it: data GADT :: * -> * where GADT :: a -> Fam a -> GADT (Fam a) and an accompanying unwrapper: unwrap :: GADT (Fam a) -> (a, Fam a) unwrap (GADT x y) = (x, y) When Fam is declared using the first notation, type family Fam a :: * GHC HEAD gives the following error message: Main.hs:9:21: Couldn't match expected type `a' against inferred type `a1' `a' is a rigid type variable bound by the type signature for `unwrap' at Main.hs:8:20 `a1' is a rigid type variable bound by the constructor `GADT' at Main.hs:9:8 In the expression: x In the expression: (x, y) In the definition of `unwrap': unwrap (GADT x y) = (x, y) However, when Fam is declared as (moving the a to the other side of the :: and changing it into *), type family Fam :: * -> * everything is ok. So, it seems to me that GHC HEAD considers both signatures to be really different. However, I do not quite understand the semantic difference in my example, other than that Fam needs to be fully satisfied in its named type arguments. Note that GHC 6.10.3 does not accept the latter signature for Fam since it requires at least one index for some reason, that's why I'm using GHC HEAD. Regards, Thomas