Epimorphisms, definability and cardinalities

We characterize, in syntactic terms, the ranges of epimorphisms in an arbitrary class of similar first-order structures (as opposed to an elementary class). This allows us to strengthen a result of Bacsich, as follows: in any prevariety having at most s non-logical symbols and an axiomatization requiring at most m variables, if the epimorphisms into structures with at most m+s+ℵ0 elements are surjective, then so are all of the epimorphisms. Using these facts, we formulate and prove manageable ‘bridge theorems’, matching the surjectivity of all epimorphisms in the algebraic counterpart of a logic ⊢ with suitable infinitary definability properties of ⊢, while not making the standard but awkward assumption that ⊢ comes furnished with a proper class of variables.The European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 689176 (project “Syntax Meets Semantics: Methods, Interactions, and Connections in Substructural logics”). The first author was also supported by the Project GA17-04630S of the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). The second author was supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (UID 85407). The third author was supported by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (CoE-MaSS), South Africa.http://link.springer.com/journal/112252020-02-07hj2019Mathematics and Applied Mathematic