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Game characterizations for the number of quantifiers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

Lauri Hella Open the ORCID record for Lauri Hella [Opens in a new window]  and
Kerkko Luosto Open the ORCID record for Kerkko Luosto [Opens in a new window]
Lauri Hella*
Affiliation:
University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Kerkko Luosto
Affiliation:
University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
*
Corresponding author: Lauri Hella; Email: lauri.hella@tuni.fi
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Abstract

A game that characterizes equivalence of structures with respect to all first-order sentences containing a given number of quantifiers was introduced by Immerman in 1981. We define three other games and prove that they are all equivalent to the Immerman game, and hence also give a characterization for the number of quantifiers needed for separating structures. In the Immerman game, Duplicator has a canonical optimal strategy, and hence Duplicator can be completely removed from the game by replacing her moves with default moves given by this optimal strategy. On the other hand, in the last two of our games there is no such optimal strategy for Duplicator. Thus, the Immerman game can be regarded as a one-player game, but two of our games are genuine two-player games.

Keywords

Ehrenfeucht-Fraïssé gamesformula-size gamessemantic gamesprenex normal form
Type
Special Issue: Logic, Databases and Complexity
Information
Mathematical Structures in Computer Science , First View , pp. 1 - 20
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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