You can help ghci out a bit with type synonyms: type T a = (a, a) type T2 a = T (T a) type T4 a = T2 (T2 a) type T8 a = T4 (T4 a) type T16 a = T8 (T8 a) f0 :: a -> T a f1 :: a -> T2 a f2 :: a -> T4 a f3 :: a -> T8 a f4 :: a -> T16 a f0 x = (x,x) f1 = f0 . f0 f2 = f1 . f1 f3 = f2 . f2 f4 = f3 . f3 f5 = f4 . f4 With newtypes I can probably abstract even more. (newtype X a b = X (a (a b)) Inferring the type of f5 also stops my machine in its tracks. But I *was* able to infer the type of (f4 . f4). :t (f4 . f4) (f4 . f4) :: a -> T16 (T16 a) :t f5 -- buy new computer Even when you only specify a type for f0 in terms of T you'll get more readable types: :t f3 f3 :: a -> T (T (T (T (T (T (T (T a))))))) But the amount of computation required seems the same.