English

Stratifiable formulae are not context-free

Logic 2025-09-23 v4 Formal Languages and Automata Theory

Abstract

Stratified formulae were introduced by Quine as an alternative way to attack Russell's Paradox. Instead of limiting comprehension by size (as in ZF\mathsf{ZF} set theory, using its axiom scheme of separation), unlimited comprehension is given to formulae that are in some sense descended from formulae of typed set theory. By keeping variables in a stratified structure, the most common candidates for inconsistency such as {xxx}\{x\mid x\notin x\} are eliminated. Under the usual syntax of set theory, the set of stratified formulae form a formal language. We show that, unlike the full class of well-formed formulae of set theory, this language is not context-free, and extend the result to its complement. Therefore, much like the axioms of PA\mathsf{PA} and ZF\mathsf{ZF} (under their usual axiomatizations), the theory NF\mathsf{NF} as a formal language is not context-free. We then introduce a non-standard syntax of set theory and show that with this syntax there is a restricted class of formulae, the exo-stratified formulae, that is context-free and full (up to relabelling of variables).

Cite

@article{arxiv.2304.10291,
  title  = {Stratifiable formulae are not context-free},
  author = {Calliope Ryan-Smith},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.10291},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

10 pages; accepted version

R2 v1 2026-06-28T10:12:25.164Z