Taming the `elsewhere': On expressivity of topological languages

Abstract

In topological modal logic, it is well known that the Cantor derivative is more expressive than the topological closure, and the `elsewhere,' or `difference,' operator is more expressive than the `somewhere' operator. In 2014, Kudinov and Shehtman asked whether the combination of closure and elsewhere becomes strictly more expressive when adding the Cantor derivative. In this paper we give an affirmative answer: in fact, the Cantor derivative alone can define properties of topological spaces not expressible with closure and elsewhere. To prove this, we develop a novel theory of morphisms which preserve formulas with the elsewhere operator.