Question on polymorphic typing for curried functions

[Christopher Kauffman <kauffman@cs.umn.edu>]

I am looking for a bit of information on the behavior of curried functions wrt 
polymorphic arguments. For instance, in the following example, using a curried 
function seems to lose the nice polymorphism that I desire.

# let genf f a b = f a b;;
val genf : ('a -> 'b -> 'c) -> 'a -> 'b -> 'c = <fun>
# let specf = genf (<);;
val specf : '_a -> '_a -> bool = <fun>
# specf 1 2;;
- : bool = true
# specf;;
- : int -> int -> bool = <fun>

An alternative definition for the specific 'specf' maintains polymorphism of its 
arguments.

# let specf a b = genf (<) a b;;
val specf : 'a -> 'a -> bool = <fun>
# specf 1 2;;
- : bool = true
# specf 1.0 2.0;;
- : bool = true
# specf;;
- : 'a -> 'a -> bool = <fun>

Is there a set of rules or guidelines that determine when argument types are 
specialized versus staying polymorphic?

Cheers,
Chris