Unary Predicate Symbol Research Articles

A Decidable Fragment of First Order Modal Logic: Two Variable Term Modal Logic

First order modal logic (𝖥𝖮𝖬𝖫) is built by extending First Order Logic (𝖥𝖮) with modal operators. A typical formula is of the form \(\forall x \exists y \Box P(x,y)\) . Not only is 𝖥𝖮𝖬𝖫 undecidable, even simple fragments like that of restriction to unary predicate symbols, guarded fragment and two variable fragment, which are all decidable for 𝖥𝖮 become undecidable for 𝖥𝖮𝖬𝖫. In this paper we study Term Modal logic (𝖳𝖬𝖫) which allows modal operators to be indexed by terms. A typical formula is of the form \(\forall x \exists y~\Box _x P(x,y)\) . There is a close correspondence between 𝖳𝖬𝖫 and 𝖥𝖮𝖬𝖫 and we explore this relationship in detail in the paper. In contrast to 𝖥𝖮𝖬𝖫, we show that the two variable fragment (without constants, equality) of 𝖳𝖬𝖫 is decidable. Further, we prove that adding a single constant makes the two variable fragment of 𝖳𝖬𝖫 undecidable. On the other hand, when equality is added to the logic, it loses the finite model property.

Exorcising the phantom zone

In this paper we introduce a language of first-order hybrid logic in which function symbols are interpreted by partial functions and prove a number of completeness results. Syntactically, our language builds on the basic propositional hybrid language, has a primitive unary predicate symbol DEN which tests whether a term denotes or not, and permits satisfaction operators to rigidify predicate and function symbols. Semantically, our system is actualist, allows terms to be undefined, and has no truth-value gaps. But should we follow Fitting and Mendelsohn and rule out domain elements not belonging to any world, or should we tolerate them? Here we explore both options. As we shall see, while the choice makes no difference when it comes to validity, it has consequences for richer logics.

Towards the entropy-limit conjecture

The maximum entropy principle is widely used to determine non-committal probabilities on a finite domain, subject to a set of constraints, but its application to continuous domains is notoriously problematic. This paper concerns an intermediate case, where the domain is a first-order predicate language. Two strategies have been put forward for applying the maximum entropy principle on such a domain: (i) applying it to finite sublanguages and taking the pointwise limit of the resulting probabilities as the size n of the sublanguage increases; (ii) selecting a probability function on the language as a whole whose entropy on finite sublanguages of size n is not dominated by that of any other probability function for sufficiently large n. The entropy-limit conjecture says that, where these two approaches yield determinate probabilities, the two methods yield the same probabilities. If this conjecture is found to be true, it would provide a boost to the project of seeking a single canonical inductive logic—a project which faltered when Carnap's attempts in this direction succeeded only in determining a continuum of inductive methods. The truth of the conjecture would also boost the project of providing a canonical characterisation of normal or default models of first-order theories.Hitherto, the entropy-limit conjecture has been verified for languages which contain only unary predicate symbols and also for the case in which the constraints can be captured by a categorical statement of Σ1 quantifier complexity. This paper shows that the entropy-limit conjecture also holds for categorical statements of Π1 complexity, for various non-categorical constraints, and in certain other general situations.

ON A QUESTION OF KRAJEWSKI’S

AbstractIn this paper, we study finitely axiomatizable conservative extensions of a theoryUin the case whereUis recursively enumerable and not finitely axiomatizable. Stanisław Krajewski posed the question whether there are minimal conservative extensions of this sort. We answer this question negatively.Consider a finite expansion of the signature ofUthat contains at least one predicate symbol of arity ≥ 2. We show that, for any finite extensionαofUin the expanded language that is conservative overU, there is a conservative extensionβofUin the expanded language, such that$\alpha \vdash \beta$and$\beta \not \vdash \alpha$. The result is preserved when we consider eitherextensionsormodel-conservative extensionsofUinstead ofconservative extensions. Moreover, the result is preserved when we replace$\dashv$as ordering on the finitely axiomatized extensions in the expanded language by a relevant kind of interpretability, to witinterpretability that identically translates the symbols of the U-language.We show that the result fails when we consider an expansion with only unary predicate symbols for conservative extensions ofUordered by interpretability that preserves the symbols ofU.

P-Spectra of Abelian Groups

We consider four types of subgroups of Abelian groups: arbitrary subgroups (ssubgroups), algebraically closed subgroups (a-subgroups), pure subgroups (p-subgroups), and elementary subgroups (e-subgroups) .A languageL(X) is an extension of a language L by a set X of constants. A language LP is an extension of L by one unary predicate symbol P .F ori ∈{ s, a, p, e} ,l etΔi consist of sentences in LP ,w hereL is the language of Abelian groups, expressing the fact that a predicate P defines a subgroup of type i. For a complete theory T of Abelian groups and for i ∈{ s, a, p, e} ,ac ardinal function assigning a cardinal λ the supremum of the number of completions of sets (T ∗ ∪{ P (a) | a ∈ X }∪ Δi) in the language (L(X))P for complete extensions T ∗ of T in the language L(X) for sets X of cardinality λ is called the (P, i)-spectrum of the theory T .F or eachi ∈{ s, a, p, e}, we describe all possible (P, i)-spectra of complete theories of Abelian groups.

The number of P-expansions of Abelian groups

In [1], there is a theorem which says that under the assumption of the generalized continuum hypothesis, a theory of any Abelian group is P -superstable if P defines an elementary subsystem. There, also, for this type of subgroups, a list of possible P -spectra of complete theories T of Abelian groups is given on the assumption that T is superstable. In [2], it was proved that a theory of every torsion-free Abelian group is P -stable if P defines an algebraically closed subgroup. A complete description of Abelian groups whose theories are P -stable if P defines an algebraically closed subgroup is contained in [3]. Below P -spectra of Abelian groups will be completely described for subgroups P of the following types: pure subgroups, elementary subsystems, algebraically closed subgroups, and arbitrary subgroups. In particular, we generalize the above-mentioned results in [1, 2]. A substructure B of a structure A is said to be algebraically closed if B contains each finite set X ⊆ A definable in A by a formula Φ(x) with parameters in B. By L(X) we denote a language obtained from L by adding X as a set of new constants. For a complete theory T in a language L, T (X) denotes an arbitrary completion of T in a language L(X). We say that X is a set in a theory T , bearing in mind that some completion T (X) has been fixed. Let LP be a language obtained from L by adding a new unary predicate symbol P . Definition. Let T be a complete L-theory, Δ a set of LP -sentences, and X a set in T . Denote by CTΔ(X) the cardinality of a set of completions in a language (L(X))P of the set

Generalized stability of torsion-free Abelian groups

Stable theories were introduced in [1] for constructing classification theory and are a generalization of the concept of a totally transcendental theory as defined in [2]. In [3], it was proved that the property of being stable for a theory is equivalent to being definable for every complete type of the theory. This property plays a fundamental part in research on stable theories. In [4], the notion of E∗-stability (generalized stability) was introduced, and it was proved that types for E∗-stable theories are definable. A consequence of that result was stating, along with definability of types for stable theories (see [3]), that types over any P -sets in P -stable theories likewise are definable (which had been established in [5] for types over P -models). The notion of E∗-stability is a new stability scale, whose basic parameter is a mapping of types of a complete theory into types of another theory. An interesting example of E∗-stability is (P, a)-stability, defined by adding to a language a unary predicate symbol and adding to types the condition of being algebraically closed for that predicate. In this paper, we work to prove a (P, a)-stability theorem for theories of torsion-free Abelian groups. In so doing, use is made of quantifier elimination down to positive primitive formulas in Abelian groups with a predicate distinguishing a subgroup. By virtue of this fact, the question of being (P, a)-stable for a theory reduces to asking if a system of linear equations with integer coefficients has a solution in the algebraic closure of constants involved in the system. To ∗Supported by RFBR (project No. 09-01-00336-a).

The two-cardinal problem for languages of arbitrary cardinality

AbstractLet ℒ be a first-order language of cardinality κ++ with a distinguished unary predicate symbol U. In this paper we prove, working on L, the two cardinal transfer theorem (κ+,κ) ⇒ (κ++, κ+) for this language. This problem was posed by Chang and Keisler more than twenty years ago.

AXIOMS FOR DETERMINATENESS AND TRUTH

A new formal theory DT of truth extending PA is introduced, whose language is that of PA together with one new unary predicate symbol T (x), for truth applied to Gödel numbers of suitable sentences in the extended language. Falsity of x, F(x), is defined as truth of the negation of x; then, the formula D(x) expressing that x is the number of a determinate meaningful sentence is defined as the disjunction of T(x) and F(x). The axioms of DT are those of PA extended by (I) full induction, (II) strong compositionality axioms for D, and (III) the recursive defining axioms for T relative to D. By (II) is meant that a sentence satisfies D if and only if all its parts satisfy D; this holds in a slightly modified form for conditional sentences. The main result is that DT has a standard model. As an improvement over earlier systems developed by the author, DT meets a number of leading criteria for formal theories of truth that have been proposed in the recent literature and comes closer to realizing the informal view that the domain of the truth predicate consists exactly of the determinate meaningful sentences.

Learning of erasing primitive formal systems from positive examples

The present paper considers the learning problem of erasing primitive formal systems, PFSs for short, in view of inductive inference in Gold framework from positive examples. A PFS is a kind of logic program over strings called regular patterns, and consists of exactly two axioms of the forms p ( π ) ← and p ( τ ) ← p ( x 1 ) , … , p ( x n ) , where p is a unary predicate symbol, π and τ are regular patterns, and x i s are distinct variables. A PFS is erasing or nonerasing according to allowing the empty string substitution for some variables or not. We investigate the learnability of the class P F S L of languages generated by the erasing PFSs satisfying a certain condition. We first show that the class P F S L has M-finite thickness. Moriyama and Sato showed that a language class with M-finite thickness is learnable if and only if there is a finite tell tale set for each language in the class. We then introduce a particular type of finite set of strings for each erasing PFS, and show that the set is a finite tell tale set of the language. These imply that the class P F S L is learnable from positive examples.

An axiomatics for nonstandard set theory, based on von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel Theory

AbstractWe present an axiomatic framework for nonstandard analysis—the Nonstandard Class Theory (NCT) which extends von Neumann–Gödel–Bernays Set Theory (NBG) by adding a unary predicate symbol St to the language of NBG (St(X) means that the class X is standard) and axioms—related to it—analogs of Nelson's idealization, standardization and transfer principles. Those principles are formulated as axioms, rather than axiom schemes, so that NCT is finitely axiomatizable. NCT can be considered as a theory of definable classes of Bounded Set Theory by V. Kanovei and M. Reeken. In many aspects NCT resembles the Alternative Set Theory by P. Vopenka. For example there exist semisets (proper subclasses of sets) in NCT and it can be proved that a set has a standard finite cardinality iff it does not contain any proper subsemiset. Semisets can be considered as external classes in NCT. Thus the saturation principle can be formalized in NCT.

Some Closure Properties of Finite Definitions

There is no known syntactic characterization of the class of finite definitions in terms of a set of basic definitions and a set of basic operators under which the class is closed. Furthermore, it is known that the basic propositional operators do not preserve finiteness. In this paper I survey these problems and explore operators that do preserve finiteness. I also show that every definition that uses only unary predicate symbols and equality is bound to be finite.

Asymptotic Conditional Probabilities: The Unary Case

Motivated by problems that arise in computing degrees of belief, we consider the problem of computing asymptotic conditional probabilities for first-order sentences. Given first-order sentences $\phi$ and $\theta$, we consider the structures with domain $\{1,\ldots, N\}$ that satisfy $\theta$, and compute the fraction of them in which $\phi$ is true. We then consider what happens to this fraction as $N$ gets large. This extends the work on 0-1 laws that considers the limiting probability of first-order sentences, by considering asymptotic conditional probabilities. As shown by Liogon'kii [Math. Notes Acad. USSR, 6 (1969), pp. 856--861] and by Grove, Halpern, and Koller [Res. Rep. RJ 9564, IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA, 1993], in the general case, asymptotic conditional probabilities do not always exist, and most questions relating to this issue are highly undecidable. These results, however, all depend on the assumption that $\theta$ can use a nonunary predicate symbol. Liogonkii [Math. Notes Acad. USSR, 6 (1969), pp. 856--861] shows that if we condition on formulas $\theta$ involving unary predicate symbols only (but no equality or constant symbols), then the asymptotic conditional probability does exist and can be effectively computed. This is the case even if we place no corresponding restrictions on $\phi$. We extend this result here to the case where $\theta$ involves equality and constants. We show that the complexity of computing the limit depends on various factors, such as the depth of quantifier nesting, or whether the vocabulary is finite or infinite. We completely characterize the complexity of the problem in the different cases, and show related results for the associated approximation problem.

On reduction properties

Let us consider countable languages L containing a unary predicate symbol P and L− =L\{P}. We also assume that L is relational. Then for any L-structure M, N = PM can naturally be considered as an L−-substructure of M. The main object of this paper will be the study of the following question: Under what condition does M have to be ℵ0-categorical. ℵ1-categorical, or stable if N is?Hodges and Pillay [6] proved that if M is a countable symmetric extension of N and T = Th(M) is minimal over P (they said that T is one-cardinal over P), then the total categoricity of N implies that of M. This is a solution to a problem in Ahlbrandt and Ziegler [1]. The condition that “M is a symmetric extension of N” is an interpretation of the condition “every relation on N definable in M is definable within N”. We shall give several interpretations of this phrase: They are the Ø-reduction property, the reduction property, the strong reduction property, and the uniform reduction property (Definition 1). Under the assumptions, we study the question proposed above.In §3 we treat the case that M is countable and show that if T is minimal over P and M has the strong reduction property over N, then M is ℵ0-categorical if N is (Theorem 5). This is a slight extension of the result of Hodges and Pillay mentioned above. (If M is countable and saturated, then the strong reduction property is equivalent to the condition that M will be symmetric over N if we add a finite number of appropriate constants.) A counterexample to this theorem has been obtained by Hrushovski in the case that only the Ø-reduction property is assumed. We also give a stronger result: If M has the Ø-reduction property over N and is ℵ0-categorical, M\N is infinite, and N is algebraically closed, then there is an expansion M* of M such that M* is not ℵo-categorical but M* still has the Ø-reduction property over N (Theorem 6). Moreover, we give an example such that M has the uniform reduction property over N. Th(M*) is minimal over P. N is ℵ0-categorical but M is not.

A System of Complete and Consistent Truth

To the axioms of Peano arithmetic formulated in a language with an additional unary predicate symbol T we add the rules of necessitation $\phi/T\,\overline{\phi }$ and conecessitation T $\,\overline{\phi }/\phi $ and axioms stating that T commutes with the logical connectives and quantifiers. By a result of McGee this theory is $\omega$-inconsistent, but it can be approximated by models obtained by a kind of rule-of-revision semantics. Furthermore we prove that FS is equivalent to a system already studied by Friedman and Sheard and give an analysis of its proof theory.

Pseudoprojective strongly minimal sets are locally projective

AbstractLet D be a strongly minimal set in the language L, and D′ ⊃ D an elementary extension with infinite dimension over D. Add to L a unary predicate symbol D and let T′ be the theory of the structure (D′, D), where D interprets the predicate D. It is known that T′ is ω-stable. We proveTheorem A. If D is not locally modular, then T′ has Morley rank ω.We say that a strongly minimal set D is pseudoprojective if it is nontrivial and there is a k < ω such that, for all a, b ∈ D and closed X ⊂ D, a ∈ cl(Xb) ⇒ there is a Y ⊂ X with a ∈ cl(Yb) and ∣Y∣ ≤ k. Using Theorem A, we proveTheorem B. If a strongly minimal set D is pseudoprojective, then D is locally projective.The following result of Hrushovski's (proved in §4) plays a part in the proof of Theorem B.Theorem C. Suppose that D is strongly minimal, and there is some proper elementary extension D1 of D such that the theory of the pair (D1, D) is ω1-categorical. Then D is locally modular.

Indescribable cardinals and elementary embeddings

Indescribability is closely related to the reflection principles of Zermelo-Fränkel set theory. In this axiomatic setting the universe of all sets stratifies into a natural cumulative hierarchy (Vα: α ϵ On) such that any formula of the language for set theory that holds in the universe already holds in the restricted universe of all sets obtained by some stage.The axioms of ZF prove the existence of many ordinals α such that this reflection scheme holds in the world Vα. Hanf and Scott noticed that one arrives at a large cardinal notion if the reflecting formulas are allowed to contain second order free variables to which one assigns subsets of Vα. For a given collection Ω of formulas in the ϵ language of set theory with higher type variables and a unary predicate symbol they define an ordinal α to be Ω indescribable if for all sentences Φ in Ω and A ⊆ VαSince a sufficient coding apparatus is available, this definition is (for the classes of formulas that we are going to consider) equivalent to the one that one obtains by allowing finite sequences of relations over Vα, some of which are possibly k-ary. We will be interested mainly in certain standardized classes of formulas: Let (, respectively) denote the class of all formulas in the language introduced above whose prenex normal form has n alternating blocks of quantifiers of type m (i.e. (m + 1)th order) starting with ∃ (∀, respectively) and no quantifiers of type greater than m. In Hanf and Scott [1961] it is shown that in ZFC, indescribability is equivalent to inaccessibility and indescribability coincides with weak compactness.

Inductive inference of regular languages based on model inference

This paper is concerned with an algorithm for identifying an unknown regular language from examples of its members and non-members. The algorithm is based on the model inference algorithm given by Shapiro. In our setting, however, a given first order language for describing a target logic program has countably many unary predicate symbols: q 0,q 1,q 2…. On the other hand, the oracle which gives information about the unknown regular language to the inference algorithm has no interpretation for predicates other than the predicate q 0. In such a setting,we cannot directly take advantage of the contradiction backtracing algorithm which is one of the most important parts for the efficiency of the model inference algorithm. In order to overcome this disadvantage, we develop a method for giving an interpretation for predicates other than the predicate q 0 indirectly, which is based on the idea of using the oracle and a one to one mapping from a set of predicates to a set of strings. Furthermore, we propose a mod...

Partition properties of M-ultrafilters and ideals

As is well known, the following are equivalent for any uniform ultrafilter U on an uncountable cardinal:(i) U is selective;(ii) U → ;(iii) U → .In §1 of this paper, we consider this result in terms of M-ultrafilters (Definition 1.1), where M is a transitive model of ZFC (Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice). We define the partition properties and for M-ultrafilters (Definition 1.3), and characterize those M-ultrafilters that possess these properties (Theorem 1.5) so that the result mentioned at the beginning is subsumed as the special case that M is V, the universe of all sets. It turns out that the two properties have to be handled separately, and that, besides selectivity, we need to formulate additional conditions (Definition 1.4). The extra conditions become superfluous when M = V because they are then trivially satisfied. One of them is nothing new; it is none other than Kunen's iterability-of-ultrapowers condition.In §2, we obtain characterizations of the partition properties I+ → and I+ → (Definition 2.3) of uniform ideals I on an infinite cardinal κ (Theorem 2.6). This is done by applying the main results of §1 to the canonical -ultrafilter in the Boolean-valued model constructed from the completion of the quotient algebra P(κ)/I. They are related to certain known characterizations of weakly compact and of Ramsey cardinals.Our basic set theory is ZFC. In §1, it has to be supplemented by a new unary predicate symbol M and new nonlogical axioms that make M look like a transitive model of ZFC.

A note on interpretations of many-sorted theories

Whenever many-sorted theories are discussed in logic texts (e.g., [3, pp. 483–485]), it is fashionable to observe that every many-sorted theory can be effectively replaced by an equally powerful one-sorted theory *. The theory * contains for each sort σ of a unary predicate symbol Sσ used to indicate that an individual is of sort σ; the nonlogical axioms of * are the “translations” of those of together with axioms asserting that there is at least one individual of each sort and that all function symbols behave properly with respect to sorts. This observation suggests that perhaps many-sorted theories are no more useful than one-sorted theories. That this is not always the case has been pointed out previously [1, p. 13]. The content of this note is that can be interpretable in without * being interpretable in *.If a function symbol f in a many-sorted theory takes as its arguments n terms a1,…, an of sorts σ1, …, σn, respectively and produces a term fa1 … an of sort σ, then f is said to be of type (σ1, …, σn;σ). Likewise, a predicate symbol is of type (σ1, …, σn) if it takes as its arguments n terms of sorts σ1, …, σn. We assume that for each sort σ there is a predicate symbol = σ of type (σ, σ).