I wouldn't call them statements because they aren't executed. Instead, I would classify them as "declarations". You state what something is, instead of telling

I wouldn't call them statements because they aren't executed. Instead, I would classify them as "declarations". You state what something is, instead of telling the computer what to do. Traditional assignment is an expression in Haskell. count :: Int -> IO Int count n = do r <- newIORef 0 loop r 1 where loop :: IORef Int -> Int -> IO Int loop r i | i>n = readIORef r | otherwise = do v <- readIORef r writeIORef r (v+i) loop r (i+1)