Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 March 2014
In [1] we proved the following interpolation theorem for first-order (finitary) logic:
Theorem (Scott). Let A and B be sentences. There is an -sentence C such that A → C and C → B iff whenever and are -isomorphic structures and satisfies A then satisfies B.
We show here that the Theorem holds for A and B in Lω1, ω only if we permit the interpolant C to be in L(2ω)+, ω, where (2ω)+ is the successor of 2ω.
Our language contains the usual logical symbols and the relation symbols Ri, is i ∈ J. IfI ⊆ J define an I-sentence to be a sentence containing only relations with subscripts in I. If define an -sentence to be a boolean combination of I-sentences with , i.e., a sentence consisting of I-sentences, for various I's in , joined together by ∨, ∧ and ⌝; e.g., ∀xR1(x) ∨ ∀xR2(x)is a{{1}, {2}}-sentence but ∀x(R1(x) ∨ R2(x)) is not. If is a structure let , be the structure obtained by restricting to just the relations with subscripts in I. We say that is -isomorphic to if is isomorphic to for each .