Metavariable

For the term as used in computer science, see Metasyntactic variable.

In logic, a metavariable (also metalinguistic variable[1] or syntactical variable[2]) is a symbol or symbol string which belongs to a metalanguage and stands for elements of some object language. For instance, in the sentence

Let A and B be two sentences of a language ℒ

the symbols A and B are part of the metalanguage in which the statement about the object language ℒ is formulated.

References

  1. ^ Geoffrey Hunter, Metalogic: An Introduction to the Metatheory of Standard First-Order Logic p.13
  2. ^ Shoenfield, Joseph R. (2001) [1967], Mathematical Logic (2nd ed.), A K Peters, p. 7, ISBN 978-1-56881-135-2