English

A simple combinatorial proof for small model property of two-variable logic

Logic in Computer Science 2020-06-03 v2 Computational Complexity

Abstract

We present another proof for the well-known {\em small model property} of two-variable logic. As far as we know, existing proofs of this property rely heavily on model theoretic concepts. In contrast, ours is purely combinatorial and uses only a very simple counting argument, which we find rather intuitive and elegant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.07239,
  title  = {A simple combinatorial proof for small model property of two-variable logic},
  author = {Yanger Ma and Tony Tan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.07239},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:51:55.269Z