  A notion of branch-width, which generalizes the one known for graphs, can be
defined for matroids. We first give a proof of the polynomial time
model-checking of monadic second-order formulas on representable matroids of
bounded branch-width, by reduction to monadic second-order formulas on trees.
This proof is much simpler than the one previously known. We also provide a
link between our logical approach and a grammar that allows to build matroids
of bounded branch-width. Finally, we introduce a new class of non-necessarily
representable matroids, described by a grammar and on which monadic
second-order formulas can be checked in linear time.

Discrete Mathematics;Data Structures and Algorithms;Logic in Computer Science