By a classical theorem of Harvey Friedman (1973), every countable nonstandard model
$\mathcal {M}$
of a sufficiently strong fragment of ZF has a proper rank-initial self-embedding j, i.e., j is a self-embedding of
$\mathcal {M}$
such that
$j[\mathcal {M}]\subsetneq \mathcal {M}$
, and the ordinal rank of each member of
$j[\mathcal {M}]$
is less than the ordinal rank of each element of
$\mathcal {M}\setminus j[\mathcal {M}]$
. Here, we investigate the larger family of proper initial-embeddings j of models
$\mathcal {M}$
of fragments of set theory, where the image of j is a transitive submodel of
$\mathcal {M}$
. Our results include the following three theorems. In what follows,
$\mathrm {ZF}^-$
is
$\mathrm {ZF}$
without the power set axiom;
$\mathrm {WO}$
is the axiom stating that every set can be well-ordered;
$\mathrm {WF}(\mathcal {M})$
is the well-founded part of
$\mathcal {M}$
; and
$\Pi ^1_\infty \text{-}\mathrm {DC}_\alpha $
is the full scheme of dependent choice of length
$\alpha $
.Theorem A.There is an
$\omega $
-standard countable nonstandard model
$\mathcal {M}$
of
$\mathrm {ZF}^-+\mathrm {WO}$
that carries no initial self-embedding
$j:\mathcal {M} \longrightarrow \mathcal {M}$
other than the identity embedding.Theorem B.Every countable
$\omega $
-nonstandard model
$\mathcal {M}$
of
$\ \mathrm {ZF}$
is isomorphic to a transitive submodel of the hereditarily countable sets of its own constructible universe
$L^{\mathcal {M}}$
.Theorem C.The following three conditions are equivalent for a countable nonstandard model
$\mathcal {M}$
of
$\mathrm {ZF}^{-}+\mathrm {WO}+\forall \alpha \ \Pi ^1_\infty \text{-}\mathrm {DC}_\alpha $
. (I)There is a cardinal in
$\mathcal {M}$
that is a strict upper bound for the cardinality of each member of
$\mathrm {WF}(\mathcal {M})$
.(II)
$\mathrm {WF}(\mathcal {M})$
satisfies the powerset axiom.(III)For all
$n \in \omega $
and for all
$b \in M$
, there exists a proper initial self-embedding
$j: \mathcal {M} \longrightarrow \mathcal {M}$
such that
$b \in \mathrm {rng}(j)$
and
$j[\mathcal {M}] \prec _n \mathcal {M}$
.