Introduction to Formal Languages

by György E. Révész

Overview

This highly technical introduction to formal languages in computer science covers all areas of mainstream formal language theory, including such topics as operations on languages, context-sensitive languages, automata, decidability, syntax analysis, derivation languages, and more. Geared toward advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the treatment examines mathematical topics related to mathematical logic, set theory, and linguistics. All subjects are integral to the theory of computation.
Numerous worked examples appear throughout the book, and end-of-chapter exercises enable readers to apply theory and methods to real-life problems. Elegant mathematical proofs are provided for almost all theorems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486169378
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	03/20/2013
Series:	Dover Books on Mathematics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Gyorgy Revesz is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1. The Notion of Formal Language
1.1 Basic Concepts and Notations
1.2 The Chomsky Hierarchy of Languages
Chapter 2. Operations on Languages
2.1 Definitions of Operations on Languages
2.2 Closure Properties of Language Classes
Chapter 3. Context-Free Languages
3.1 The Chomsky Normal Form
3.2 Derivation Tree
3.3 Linear Grammars and Regular Languages
3.4 Griebach Normal Form
3.5 Regular Expressions
Chapter 4. Context-Sensitive Languages
4.1 Length-Increasing Grammars
4.2 Kuroda Normal Form
4.3 One-Sided Context-Sensitive Grammars
Chapter 5. Unrestricted Phrase-Structure Languages
5.1 A Normal Form for Type O Grammars
5.2 Derivation Graph
Chapter 6. Automata and Their Languages
6.1 Finite Automata
6.2 Pushdown Automata
6.3 Two-Pushdown Automata
6.4 Turing Machines
Chapter 7. Decidability
7.1 Recursive and Recursively Enumerable Languages
7.2 The Church-Turing Thesis
7.3 Undecidable Problems
Chapter 8. Complexity of Computations
8.1 Deterministic and Nondeterministic Procedures
8.2 Measures of Complexity
8.3 Complexity of Context-Free Language Recognition
8.4 The Hardest Context-Free Language
Chapter 9. Syntax Analysis
9.1 The Connection between Syntax and Semantics
9.2 Ambiguity
9.3 Earley's Algorithm
9.4 LL(k) and LR(k) Grammars
Chapter 10. Derivation Languages
10.1 Operations on Derivations
10.2 Derivation Words
10.3 Algebraic Properties of the Fundamental Operations
10.4 Canonical Derivations and Graph Traversals
10.5 The Context-Sensitivity of Derivation Languages
10.6 Derivations in Context-Sensitive Grammars
Appendix. Elements of Set Theory
Bibliographic Notes; References; Index