Generalized operators for programming languages
You might be interested in the citations provided in the following post on CSTheory.StackExchange: https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/19091/5038  They get at something roughly similar to what you are asking for.

See also the algebraic theory of parsing, e.g., https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/9000/5038  It seems like it too might be in the space that you are interested in.