Paper 3, Section II, I

Logic and Set Theory
Part II, 2014

Explain what is meant by a structure for a first-order signature Σ\Sigma, and describe briefly how first-order terms and formulae in the language over Σ\Sigma are interpreted in a structure. Suppose that AA and BB are Σ\Sigma-structures, and that ϕ\phi is a conjunction of atomic formulae over Σ\Sigma : show that an nn-tuple ((a1,b1),,(an,bn))\left(\left(a_{1}, b_{1}\right), \ldots,\left(a_{n}, b_{n}\right)\right) belongs to the interpretation ϕA×B\llbracket \phi \rrbracket_{A \times B} of ϕ\phi in A×BA \times B if and only if (a1,,an)ϕA\left(a_{1}, \ldots, a_{n}\right) \in \llbracket \phi \rrbracket_{A} and (b1,,bn)ϕB\left(b_{1}, \ldots, b_{n}\right) \in \llbracket \phi \rrbracket B.

A first-order theory T\mathbb{T} is called regular if its axioms all have the form

(x)(ϕ(y)ψ),(\forall \vec{x})(\phi \Rightarrow(\exists \vec{y}) \psi),

where x\vec{x}and y\vec{y} are (possibly empty) strings of variables and ϕ\phi and ψ\psi are conjunctions of atomic formulae (possibly the empty conjunction TT ). Show that if AA and BB are models of a regular theory T\mathbb{T}, then so is A×BA \times B.

Now suppose that T\mathbb{T} is a regular theory, and that a sentence of the form

(x)(ϕ(ψ1ψ2ψn))(\forall \vec{x})\left(\phi \Rightarrow\left(\psi_{1} \vee \psi_{2} \vee \cdots \vee \psi_{n}\right)\right)

is derivable from the axioms of T\mathbb{T}, where ϕ\phi and the ψi\psi_{i} are conjunctions of atomic formulae. Show that the sentence (x)(ϕψi)(\forall \vec{x})\left(\phi \Rightarrow \psi_{i}\right) is derivable for some ii. [Hint: Suppose not, and use the Completeness Theorem to obtain a suitable family of T\mathbb{T}-models A1,,AnA_{1}, \ldots, A_{n}.]