LOGIC

Lecture 7: Predicate logic I

PREDICATE LOGIC
 We have learned how to translate English
sentences into a formal language called
sentential logic.
 We have learned two different methods for

evaluating validity:
 truthtables
 natural deduction
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 Those methods allow us to determine the
validity of ANY argument in SL.
 So if an argument in SL is valid, you can:
 Show this with a truth table
 Prove it with natural deduction
 Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that we can
prove every argument that is valid in English.
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 As we’ve discussed before, not every valid
argument in English translates into a valid
argument in SL.
 Consider this argument:
 Alldogs are mammals.
 Spot is a dog.
 Therefore, Spot is a mammal.
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 This is clearly a valid deductive argument.
But if we translate it into SL:
P
Q
 Therefore, R.
 There aren’t any of our SL logical connectives
to translate.
 But as an argument in SL, P,Q, therefore R is

clearly INVALID.
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 We are missing something about the first
argument when we translate it into SL.
 The argument is valid, but SL doesn’t show

why.
 We need a more powerful logical language to

show why the argument is valid.

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 There is a more powerful system –
PREDICATE LOGIC, also called QUANTIFIED
LOGIC (QL).
 Sentential logic breaks arguments up into

logical connectives and atomic sentences.

 But predicate logic breaks arguments up in a

different way: into connectives, SINGULAR

TERMS, and PREDICATES.
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 A SINGULAR TERM is a word or phrase that
‘picks out’ or REFERS to a single person,
place, or object.
 So “Jenny” is a singular term; so is “Hong

Kong”.
 But not ‘dog’ or ‘green’.
 We’ll call them NAMES for short.
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 ‘Proper’ names are the most obvious
examples of singular terms, but there are
other types.
 DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS:
 “The president of the United States” picks out a
single person, Joe Biden.
 The REFERENT of this description changes over
time, but at any given time there is only one
referent.
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 In predicate logic (QL), we use lower case
letters to stand for names.
 So a, b, c, etc. can all be used for names.
 We can NOT use x, y, and z – those will be used
later.
 For example, I might translate ‘Hong Kong’
using the lower letter h.
 Once I use a letter for a name, I can’t use it
again for something else in the same translation.
 So if I have Bill and Bob, only one can be b. (It’s
ok to use subscripts though – b1 and b2.)
 I CAN give the same object two names (e.g. both
a and b can name Bill).
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 Names combine with PREDICATES to make
the atomic sentences of QL.
 Consider the sentence “Fluffy is a dog”.
 “Fluffy” is a name
 “is a dog” is a predicate
 Predicates assign properties or
characteristics to objects:
 “is tall”
 “is happy”
 “is a good student”
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 Predicates are represented by capital letters
in QL (any – X, Y, Z ok).
 Again, can’t use the same letter for two
predicates.
 In order to represent a whole atomic
sentence, a name and a predicate must be
combined.
 “Fluffy is a dog” = Df.
 “f”stands for “Fluffy”
 “D” stands for “is a dog”
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 In QL, we always put the predicate before the
name.
 So Ga is a well-formed formula, but aG is not.

 aais not a WFF

 GG is not a WFF
 Other WFFs in QL:
 “Hong Kong is beautiful” = Bh.
 “Jenny is a professor” = Pj.
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 The sentences we’ve just looked at use
MONADIC predicates, or ‘one-place’
predicates.
 These attach to a single name.

 But other predicates are POLYADIC:

 Janeloves Bill.
 Tuesday is between Monday and Wednesday.
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 These work similarly:
 Janeloves Bill = Ljb.
 Tuesday is between Monday and Wednesday =
Btmw.
 The predicate always comes first; the names
after.

 We can even do:

 Bill loves himself = Lbb.
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 In principle, there is no limit to how many
‘places’ a predicate can have.
 So Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa is technically

grammatical in QL.
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 Technically, WFFs in SL are WFFs in QL
(though systems vary on this).
A capital letter by itself, without a name, can be
treated as a “0-place” predicate.
 In practice, though, we won’t use these in class.
So you will not see things like P, or P&Q, in
problems using QL.
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 QL uses all the same connectives that SL
does. Sentences in QL can be put together in
the same way as in SL.
 Name-predicate combos are predicate logic’s
‘atomic sentences’, just like sentence letters are
in SL.
 So these are all WFFs in QL:
 Gaa & Fbc
 ~Br
 ~Fa → (Br & Gbb)
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 QL also adds some new logical words that
get their own special symbols.
 There are two new symbols in QL – they are

both what are known as QUANTIFIERS.

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 QUANTIFIERS are logical words in natural
language that express quantity:
 “some”
 “all”
 “most”
 “none”
 “one”
 “two”
 In QL, we only symbolize two – ‘some’ and
‘all’.
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 “All” is represented with an upside down A -
∀. We call this the ‘universal quantifier’.
 “Some” is represented with a backwards E -

∃. We call this the ‘existential quantifier’.

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 ‘Some’ in English is a little different from ∃ in
QL.
 In English, “some dogs are happy” implies

that more than one dog is happy. But in QL,

it does not. In QL, “some” just means “at
least one”.
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 The way in which the quantifiers work in
sentences of QL is a bit complicated.
 We don’t attach names to the quantifiers like

this:
 ∀a
 We also don’t attach sentences directly to
the quantifiers like this:
 ∀Fa
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 Why not? Well, it wouldn’t make sense in
English:
 “Some Barack Obama”?
 “All Barack Obama is tall”?
 We want to use the quantifiers in the way
they are used in natural language.
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 Here’s a quantifier sentence that makes
sense:
 “Something is tall”
 Here, exactly WHO or WHAT is tall is not
specified – the sentence just claims that
SOMETHING is tall.
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 We can represent the unknown thing that is
tall with a VARIABLE – x, y, or z. (Plus
subscripts if needed)
 Variables are not like names in predicate

logic – they do not stand for particular

individuals or objects.
 They stand for unknown individuals, like the

‘thing’ in ‘something is tall’.

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 In order to represent the sentence
“Something is tall” in predicate logic, we
would write ∃xTx.
 This can be read as “There is an x such that

x is tall”.
 The ∃x means ‘there is an x such that’.
 It claims that there exists AT LEAST ONE
individual/object that has the property being
mentioned.
 In other words – at least one thing that could be
substituted for x (one possible value of x) has
the property of being tall.
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 “All” in predicate logic works in a similar
way. Suppose I want to say “Everything is
tall”.
 “Everything” means the same as “all the things”,
and is translated with the symbol for all - ∀.
 So to say that everything is tall, I would write
∀xTx.
 The ∀x here can be read as ‘for all x’.
 So the sentence means “For all x, x is tall”.
 In other words - every possible thing that could
be substituted for x (every possible value of x)
has the property of being tall.
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 So sentences like this are grammatical in
predicate logic:
 ∀xTx
 ∀xGx
 ∃xBx
 You can also connect such sentences with
connectives, as in:
 ∀xTx & ∀yGy
 ∃xBx v Fa
 There are some more complexities here (e.g.
using x vs y), but we’ll return to them a bit
later.
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 When we learned SL, we talked about
INTERPRETATIONS.
 Recall that an interpretation is an

assignment of meaning to the non-logical

symbols of the language.
 For SL, that was an assignment of truth

values to atomic sentences.

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 Side note: our textbook also uses the term
MODEL for interpretations.
 The term ‘model’ is used in a few different

ways in logic, however, so to avoid confusion

we’ll stick with INTERPRETATION.
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 Interpretations in QL are more complicated
than interpretations in SL.
 Interpretations in QL include:
A specification of the domain/UD (UNIVERSE OF
DISCOURSE)
 An assignment of an element of the UD to the
names
 An assignment of an EXTENSION to the
predicates
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 The first element, the universe of discourse
(UD), is the ‘domain’ of our problem – it
specifies the individuals that our variables
can ‘range over’.
 So, if our UD contains only Mary, John, Mark:
 ∀xHx is true if all members of the UD are H.
Imagine H means happy - so, for this UD, ∀xHx is
true if Mary is happy, John is happy, and Mark is
happy.
 ∃xHx is true if at least one member of the UD is
H. That is, if Mary is happy, John is happy, OR
Mark is happy.
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 The UD can be specified as in these
examples:
 UD = people
 UD = students
 UD = {Mary, Bill, Joe}

 This last uses SET notation – it lists all

members of the UD as a set.

 For QL, the UD must be non-empty – it must

contain at least one thing.
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 For homeworks and tests, I will specify the
intended universe of discourse for each
translation problem.
 So, for instance, I might tell you to translate
“everyone is happy”, assuming the UD = people.
In such a case, ‘everyone’ can be translated with
∀x.
 For non-translation problems, it generally
won’t be an issue. I will specify the UD if it is
needed; otherwise don’t worry about it.
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 The second element of an interpretation is an
assignment of entities in the UD to names:
a = Mary
 b = Joe
 c = Bill
 d = Mary

 Multiple names can pick out the same

element of the UD, but a single name cannot
pick out multiple elements.
 The element named by a name is called its

REFERENT.
PREDICATE LOGIC
 The third element is an assignment of
extension to the predicates. We can assign
an extension using English like this:
 Hx = is happy
 Tx = is tall
 That method is typical when translating from
English. But in other cases, we’ll want to use
set notation:
 Extension(H) = {Mary, Bill}
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 Set notation for predicates lists all the
members of the UD to which H applies. So
it’s only usable when the UD is fairly small.
 However, when it can be used it is very

helpful. Suppose an interpretation specifies

that Extension(H) = {Mary, Bill}.
 If we know that a names Mary, we can

immediately tell that Ha is true on this

interpretation.
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 Predicates can be empty – e.g., an
interpretation can specify that the predicate
applies to no members of the UD.
 We would represent that this way:
 Extension(P) ={}
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 For polyadic predicates, we specify their
extensions in a given interpretation by listing
sets of ORDERED N-TUPLES.
 For the two-place ‘loves’:
 Extension(L) = {<a,b>, <b,c>, <c,b>, <a,a>}
 Notice order matters!
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 It is helpful to think of an interpretation for
QL as a little bit like a possible world.
 The domain/UD tells you what’s in the world (or
at least, the part of the possible world we’re
looking at).
 The assignment of names gives you a way to talk
about or refer to the individual members of the
UD using the language of QL.
 The assignment of extension to the predicates
tells you what the properties of the members of
the world are.
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 So for instance, in the actual world I fall
under the extension of the predicate ‘is a
professor’, and Donald Trump does not.
 But there are other possible worlds where I

became president of the US, and Trump

taught this logic class. In a possible world like
that, Trump would be in the extension of the
predicate ‘is a professor’.
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 Given a QL interpretation, we can determine
whether a quantified sentence is true on that
interpretation.
 This is analogous to what we did with SL

when we determined, for instance, whether

(PvQ)->~Q is true when P = T and Q = F.
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 Let’s practice with this interpretation.
 UD: {Adam; Bill; Carl}
 a = Adam; b = Bill; c = Carl
 Extension(T) = {Adam, Bill}
 Extension(N) = {Carl}
 Extension(F) = {Carl, Bill}
 Extension(L) = {<Adam, Bill>, <Bill, Carl>,
<Carl, Adam>, <Adam, Adam>}
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 Sometimes it can help to visualize what the
‘possible world’ corresponding to an
interpretation would ‘look like’ – especially
when we start evaluating tougher sentences.
 If the UD is small enough, I like to draw a

‘world’ and the individuals in it like this:

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 Imagine each of these dots as a member of
the UD. Using our previous example
interpretation, one of these dots is Adam,
one is Bill, and one is Carl.
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 Let’s assign them the names this
interpretation gives them.

a
b
c
PREDICATE LOGIC
 And let’s note down which predicates apply
to them. Let’s start with the monadic
predicates.

a
T b
T,F
c
N,F
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 We can use arrows to show the dyadic
predicate L.

L
a
L
T b
L T,F
c
N,F
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 It’s a little ugly, but you get the idea! Just
looking at this diagram of the example
interpretation, we can tell that e.g. ∃xLxb is
true. We just look if there’s an L-arrow
pointing towards the individual named b.

L
a
L
T b
L T,F
c
N,F
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 Note – you won’t ever have to make a
diagram like this for class. But if you’re trying
to think through a tricky problem, drawing
one can sometimes help.

L
a
L
T b
L T,F
c
N,F
PREDICATE LOGIC
UD: {Adam; Bill; Carl}  True or false?
a = Adam; b = Bill; c  Ta
= Carl
 Lba
Extension(T) = {Adam,
 ∀xTx
Bill}
Extension(N) = {Carl}  ∃xLxa

Extension(F) = {Carl,  ∀xLax

Bill}  Lba -> Tb
Extension(L) =
{<Adam, Bill>, <Bill,
Carl>, <Carl, Adam>,
<Adam, Adam>}
PREDICATE LOGIC
 Summary:
 An interpretation for QL is an assignment of
meaning to the non-logical parts of the
sentences.
 For QL, these interpretations are a little like
possible worlds.
 They consist of:
 a UD/domain which specifies all the entities in the
‘world’
 an assignment of names to the entities in the UD

 an assignment of extensions to the predicates – that

is, a specification of which entities in the UD fall under

each predicate.
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 Remember that in SL, we could define the
various logical properties in terms of
interpretations.
 For instance:
A tautology is true on every interpretation – for
SL, every assignment of truth values to the
sentence letters.
 So for example, (P&Q)->P is a tautology,
because it turns out true for every possible
assignment (P=T, Q=T; P=T, Q=F, etc.).
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 We can do the same thing for interpretations
in QL.
 A tautology in QL is true on every

interpretation.
 So, for instance, Fa is not a tautology – because
we could specify an interpretation where Fa
turns out false. (Just give an interpretation where
the entity named by a is not in the extension of
F!).
 Similarly, ∃xFx is not a tautology – remember
that extensions for predicates can be empty.
 But Fa -> ∃xFx is a tautology. There’s no way to
specify an interpretation that makes it false.
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 As a more worked-out example, suppose we
have the following sentence:
 ∀xFx → ∃yGy

 To show this is NOT a tautology, we can

simply indicate an interpretation that makes it
false:
 UD = {Mary, Bill, Jane}
 a= Mary
 b = Bill
 c = Jane
 Extension(F) = {Mary, Bill, Jane}
 Extension(G) = { }
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 We can also define the other logical
properties in terms of interpretations:
A contradiction in QL is false on every
interpretation. (for instance, Fa & ~ ∃xFx)
 A set of sentences is consistent in QL if there is
an interpretation on which they are all true (for
instance, Fa, Ga, and Lab is a consistent set; Fa
and ~Fa is not).
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 We can also define the other logical
properties in terms of interpretations:
 An argument is valid in QL if any interpretation
that satisfies (makes true) the premises also
satisfies the conclusion.
 This is very much like the original, intuitive
notion of ‘no counterexamples’ we initially
used to define validity.
 Ifan argument is valid in QL, there will be no
interpretation (‘possible world’) where the
premises are true but the conclusion is false. No
counterexample!
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 We can also define the other logical
properties in terms of interpretations:
 One sentence entails another in QL if any
interpretation that satisfies the first sentence
satisfies the second sentence.
 Two sentences are logically equivalent in QL if
the first entails the second and vice versa.
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 Ichikawa goes into a lot of detail about how
notions like truth and satisfaction work in QL.
 We won’t worry about these details for class.

 Next time, we’ll apply these basic ideas to

more complicated sentences in QL, and talk

about how to do translations.