General models, descriptions, and choice in type theory

Abstract

In [4] Alonzo Church introduced an elegant and expressive formulation of type theory with λ-conversion. In [8] Henkin introduced the concept of a general model for this system, such that a sentence A is a theorem if and only if it is true in all general models. The crucial clause in Henkin's definition of a general model ℳ is that for each assignment φ of values in ℳ to variables and for each wff A, there must be an appropriate value of A in ℳ. Hintikka points out in [10, p. 3] that this constitutes a rather strong requirement concerning the structure of a general model. Henkin draws attention to the problem of constructing nonstandard models for the theory of types in [9, p. 324].We shall use a simple idea of combinatory logic to find a characterization of general models which does not directly refer to wffs, and which is easier to work with in certain contexts. This characterization can be applied, with appropriate minor and obvious modifications, to a variety of formulations of type theory with λ-conversion. We shall be concerned with a language ℒ with extensionality in which there is no description or selection operator, and in which (for convenience) the sole primitive logical constants are the equality symbols Qoαα for each type α.