In this paper we deal with infinitary languages which allow arbitrary infinite disjunctions and conjunctions, but finite strings of quantifiers only. Furthermore, we shall assume that the primitive predicate symbols are finitary. (Cf. [K] and §2 for further information and unexplained notations.)

Our main result shows that every “reasonable” language of this type is, in a certain sense, reducible to one of the same type which allows countable disjunctions and conjunctions only. More precisely if we let θ be the first measurable cardinal and μ ≤ θ, we have the following result partially announced in [R1]:

Theorem. Every theory in a Lμω language is equivalent to some theory in a Lω1ω language in the sense that atomic formulas of one language can be mapped into formulas of the other in such a way that, for every set, these maps establish a bijective correspondence between their models having that set as a universe.

The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, we derive the main result from a theorem of Sikorski on ω-homomorphisms of μ-complete boolean algebras. In the second, we give a refined version of Sikorski's theorem from which cardinality bounds can be given for the Lω1ω theories obtained by our reduction. In the last, we use a Skolem ultrapower construction to give examples for which these bounds are actually attained. As a corollary, we obtain the converse of our main result.