Extension (model theory)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In model theory, given two structures \mathfrak{A} and \mathfrak{B} in a language \mathcal{L}, we say that \mathfrak{B} is an extension of \mathfrak{A} (sometimes notated \mathfrak{A}\subset\mathfrak{B}) if

1. the universe A of \mathfrak{A} is a subset of the universe B of \mathfrak{B}, and
2. the interpretations in \mathfrak{A} of the nonlogical symbols of \mathcal{L} are the restrictions to A of their interpretations in \mathfrak{B}.

We say \mathfrak{A} is a substructure of \mathfrak{B} if and only if \mathfrak{B} is an extension of \mathfrak{A}.

The structure \mathfrak{B} is an extension of \mathfrak{A} precisely when the inclusion map from \mathfrak{A} into \mathfrak{B} is an embedding of \mathcal{L}-structures.


An injective homomorphism (a monomorphism) is also sometimes called an extension.