In §3 we construct a universal, ℵ0-categorical recursively presented partial order with greatest lower bound operator. This gives us the unique structure which embeds every countable lower semilattice. In §§5 and 6 we investigate the recursive and recursively enumerable substructures of this structure, in particular finding a suitable definition for the simple-maximal hierarchy and giving an example of an infinite recursively enumerable substructure which does not contain any infinite recursive substructure.

The idea of looking at the lattice of recursively enumerable substructures of some recursive algebraic structure was introduced by Metakides and Nerode in [5], and since then many different kinds of algebraic structures have been studied in this way, including vector spaces, Boolean algebras, groups, algebraically closed fields, and equivalence relations. Since different algebraic structures have different recursion theoretic properties, one natural question is whether an algebraic structure with relatively little structure (such as a partial order or an equivalence relation) exhibits behavior more like classical recursion theory than one with more structure (such as vector spaces or algebraically closed fields).

In [6] and [7], Metakides and Remmel studied recursion theory on orderings, and, as they point out in [6], orderings differ from most other algebraic structures in that the algebraic closure operation on orderings is trivial; but this does not present a problem for them, given the questions they explore. Moreover, they take an approach of proving general theorems which can then be applied to specific orderings. Our tack is different, although also well-established (see, for example, [3]), in which a “largest” structure is defined (in §3) which corresponds to the natural numbers in classical recursion theory. In order to distinguish substructures from subsets, a function symbol is added, namely greatest lower bound. The greatest lower bound function is fundamental to the study of orderings and occurs naturally in many of them, and thus is an appropriate addition to the theory of orderings. In §4 we redefine the concepts of simple and maximal in a manner appropriate to this structure, and prove several existence theorems.