We introduce a tool for analysing models of $\text {CT}^-$ , the compositional truth theory over Peano Arithmetic. We present a new proof of Lachlan’s theorem that the arithmetical part of models of $\text {CT}^-$ are recursively saturated. We also use this tool to provide a new proof of theorem from [8] that all models of $\text {CT}^-$ carry a partial inductive truth predicate. Finally, we construct a partial truth predicate defined for a set of formulae whose syntactic depth forms a nonstandard cut which cannot be extended to a full truth predicate satisfying $\text {CT}^-$ .

We give a valuation theoretic characterization for a real closed field to be recursively saturated. This builds on work in [9], where the authors gave such a characterization for κ-saturation, for a cardinal $\kappa \ge \aleph _0 $. Our result extends the characterization of Harnik and Ressayre [7] for a divisible ordered abelian group to be recursively saturated.