No label defined (Q4936686)

The author uses a specific truth notion for the first-order sentences on syntactical expressions (words as particular cases) over nontrivial alphabets. This truth notion leads to an arithmetical-like hierarchy \(\{S_k\}_{k<\omega}\) of languages based on the number of quantifier alternations in the prefix of a formula. The author defines a refinement of this hierarchy, namely, the difference hierarchy over the last hierarchy whose classes \(D_{k,l}\) consist of \[ \bigcup_{i=1}^m(L_{2i-1}\setminus L_{2i}),\;m\in N,\;L_i\in S_k\;\hbox{for} 1\leq i\leq j\;\hbox{and} L_i=\emptyset\;\hbox{for} i>l, \] and proves it to be nontrivial.