Interpolation and the Exchange Rule

Abstract: It was proved by Maksimova in 1977 that exactly eight varieties of Heyting algebras have the amalgamation property, and hence exactly eight axiomatic extensions of intuitionistic propositional logic have the deductive interpolation property. The prevalence of the deductive interpolation property for axiomatic extensions of substructural logics and the amalgamation property for varieties of pointed residuated lattices, their equivalent algebraic semantics, is far less well understood, however. Taking as our starting point a formulation of intuitionistic propositional logic as the full Lambek calculus with exchange, weakening, and contraction, we investigate the role of the exchange rule--algebraically, the commutativity law--in determining the scope of these properties. First, we show that there are continuum-many varieties of idempotent semilinear residuated lattices that have the amalgamation property and contain non-commutative members, and hence continuum-many axiomatic extensions of the corresponding logic that have the deductive interpolation property in which exchange is not derivable. We then show that, in contrast, exactly sixty varieties of commutative idempotent semilinear residuated lattices have the amalgamation property, and hence exactly sixty axiomatic extensions of the corresponding logic with exchange have the deductive interpolation property. From this latter result, it follows also that there are exactly sixty varieties of commutative idempotent semilinear residuated lattices whose first-order theories have a model completion.