Metavariable

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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

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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.

John Corcoran considers this terminology unfortunate because it obscures the use of schemata and because such "variables" do not actually range over a domain. [3] : 220 

The convention is that a metavariable is to be uniformly substituted with the same instance in all its appearances in a given schema. This is in contrast with nonterminal symbols in formal grammars where the nonterminals on the right of a production can be substituted by different instances. [4]

Attempts to formalize the notion of metavariable result in some kind of type theory. [5]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Hunter 1973 , p. 13.
  2. ↑ Shoenfield 2001 , p. 7.
  3. ↑ Corcoran 2006 , p. 220.
  4. ↑ Tennent 2002 , pp. 36–37, 210.
  5. ↑ Masahiko Sato, Takafumi Sakurai, Yukiyoshi Kameyama, and Atsushi Igarashi. "Calculi of Meta-variables [ permanent dead link ]" in Computer Science Logic. 17th International Workshop CSL 2003. 12th Annual Conference of the EACSL. 8th Kurt Gödel Colloquium, KGC 2003, Vienna, Austria, August 25-30, 2003. Proceedings, Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2803. ISBN   3-540-40801-0. pp. 484–497

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