An undecidable problem in correspondence theory

Abstract

In this paper we prove undecidability of first-order definability of propositional formulas. The main result is proved for intuitionistic formulas, but it remains valid for other kinds of propositional formulas by analogous arguments or with the help of various translations.For general background on correspondence theory the reader is referred to van Benthem [1], [2] (see [3] for a survey of recent results).The method for the proofs of undecidability in this paper will be to simulate calculations of a Minsky machine by intuitionistic formulas. §3 concerns this simulation. Effective procedures for the construction of simulating modal formulas can be found in the literature (cf. [4]).The principal results of the paper are in §4. §5 gives some further undecidability results, that will be proved in another paper by modification of the method of this paper.I am indebted to the referee for drawing my attention to some errors in an earlier version of this paper.