On the monoidal category of modules over the commutative ring , consider the monad coming from the unit and multiplication of the bialgebra . Its opmonoidal functor structure has comparison maps
Here and below Sweedler notation abbreviates the comultiplication . The opmonoidal associativity and unit axioms are the coassociativity and counit laws of the coalgebra. The unit and multiplication of a monad are opmonoidal natural transformations because the bialgebra axioms say
The Eilenberg-Moore category of this opmonoidal monad is the category of left -modules: a monad-algebra map is exactly a unital associative action.
Applying the preceding construction gives the diagonal bialgebra action and the unit action
The usual associators and unitors for the tensor product of modules are -linear, and the underlying tensor product is exactly . The forgetful functor into -modules is strict monoidal. The base need not be a field; the modules need be neither flat modules nor finitely generated modules.
We use the left internal-hom convention in which is right adjoint to , so its evaluation morphism has domain . For a Hopf algebra over the commutative ring , take the full -module
and give it the internal hom for modules over a Hopf algebra
The antipode is an antihomomorphism, , so
The unit acts identically. Thus this is a left -module.
The evaluation morphism is -linear. Using the diagonal bialgebra action and the antipode identity,
Now let be -linear and define its ordinary curried map . To see that it too is -linear, compute
Conversely, any -linear map uncurries to an -linear map by the already established linearity of evaluation. The ordinary tensor–hom adjunction therefore restricts to a natural bijection
Postcomposition by an -linear map makes a functor. This proves that the category of left -modules is a left closed monoidal category. All modules are allowed; no inverse antipode or finite-dimensional dual is required. Stating the tensor–hom convention explicitly avoids confusing this construction with the closure on the opposite side.