Ultraproducts and Higher order Models

Abstract

The programme of work for this thesis began with the somewhat genenal intention of parallelling in the context of higher order models the ultraproduct construction and its consequences as developed in the literature for first order models. Something of this was, of course, already available in the ultrapower construction of W.A.J. Luxemburg used in Non Standand Analysis. It may have been considered that such a genenal intention was not likely to yield anything of significance oven and above what was already available from viewing the higher order situation as a 'many sorted' first order one and interpreting the first order theory accordingly. In the event, however, I believe this has proved not to be so. In particular the substructure concepts developed in Chapter II of this thesis together with the various embedding theorems and their applications are not immediately available fnom the first order theory and seem to be of sufficient worth to warrant developing the higher order theory in its own terms. This, anyway, is the basic justification for the approach and content of the thesis.