In this paper we consider the normal modal logics of elementary classes defined by first-order formulas of the form \. We prove that many properties of these logics, such as finite axiomatisability, elementarity, axiomatisability by a set of canonical formulas or by a single generalised Sahlqvist formula, together with modal definability of the initial formula, either simultaneously hold or simultaneously do not hold.

We show that the bounded fragment of first-order logic and the hybrid language with and operators are equally expressive even with polyadic modalities, but that their fragments are equally expressive only for unary modalities.

Our concern is the axiomatisation problem for modal and algebraic logics that correspond to various fragments of two-variable first-order logic with counting quantifiers. In particular, we consider modal products with Diff, the propositional unimodal logic of the difference operator. We show that the two-dimensional product logic $Diff \times Diff$ is non-finitely axiomatisable, but can be axiomatised by infinitely many Sahlqvist axioms. We also show that its ‘square’ version (the modal counterpart of the substitution and equality free fragment of two-variable first-order (...) logic with counting to two) is non-finitely axiomatisable over $Diff \times Diff$ , but can be axiomatised by adding infinitely many Sahlqvist axioms. These are the first examples of products of finitely axiomatisable modal logics that are not finitely axiomatisable, but axiomatisable by explicit infinite sets of canonical axioms. (shrink)

We study a canonical modal logic introduced by Lemmon, and axiomatised by an infinite sequence of axioms generalising McKinsey’s formula. We prove that the class of all frames for this logic is not closed under elementary equivalence, and so is non-elementary. We also show that any axiomatisation of the logic involves infinitely many non-canonical formulas.