Reset machines

AbstractA reset tape has one read-write head which moves only left-to-right except that the head can be reset once to the left end and the tape rescanned; a multiple-reset machine has reset tapes as auxiliary storage and a one-way input tape. Linear time is no more powerful than real time for nondeterministic multiple-reset machines and so the family MULTI-RESET of languages accepted in real time by nondeterministic multiple-reset machines is closed under linear erasing. MULTI-RESET is closed under Kleene. It can be characterized as the smallest family of languages containing the regular sets and closed under intersection and linear-erasing homomorphic duplication or as the smallest intersection-closed semiAFL containing COPY = {ww | w in {a, b}∗}. A circular tape is read full-sweep from left-to-right only and then reset to the left, any number of times; a nonwriting circular tape cannot be altered after the first sweep. For nondeterministic machines operating in real time, multiple reset tapes, circular tapes or nonwriting circular tapes have the same power. Languages in MULTI-RESET can be accepted in real time by nondeterministic machines using only three reset tapes or using only one reset tape and one nonwriting circular tape

On purely morphic characterizations of context-free languages

AbstractIn this paper we show the following: For any λ-free context-free language L there effectively exist a weak coding g, a homomorphism h such that L=gh−1 (∣cD2), where D2 is the Dyck set over a two-letter alphabet. As an immediate corollary it follows that for any λ-free context-free language L there exist a weak coding g and a mapping F such that L=gF−1(∣c)

Principal AFL

A (full) principal AFL is a (full) AFL generated by a single language, i.e., it is thesmallest (full) AFL containing the given language. In the present paper, a study is made of such AFL. First, an AFA (abstract family of acceptors) characterization of (full) principal AFL is given. From this result, many well-known families of AFL can be shown to be (full) principal AFL. Next, two representation theorems for each language in a (full) principal AFL are given. The first involves the generator and one application each of concatenation, star, intersection with a regular set, inverse homomorphism, and a special type of homomorphism. The second involves an a-transducer, the generator, and one application of concatenation and star. Finally, it is shown that if ℒ1 and ℒ2 are (full) principal AFL, then so are (a) the smallest (full) AFL containing {L1∩L2/L1 in ℒ1, L2 in ℒ2 and (b) the family obtained by substituting ε-free languages of ℒ2 into languages of ℒ1

Tree transducers, L systems, and two-way machines

A relationship between parallel rewriting systems and two-way machines is investigated. Restrictions on the “copying power” of these devices endow them with rich structuring and give insight into the issues of determinism, parallelism, and copying. Among the parallel rewriting systems considered are the top-down tree transducer; the generalized syntax-directed translation scheme and the ETOL system, and among the two-way machines are the tree-walking automaton, the two-way finite-state transducer, and (generalizations of) the one-way checking stack automaton. The. relationship of these devices to macro grammars is also considered. An effort is made .to provide a systematic survey of a number of existing results

Three hierarchies of transducers

Composition of top-down tree transducers yields a proper hierarchy of transductions and of output languages. The same is true for ETOL systems (viewed as transducers) and for two-way generalized sequential machines

Regular Separability and Intersection Emptiness Are Independent Problems

The problem of regular separability asks, given two languages K and L, whether there exists a regular language S that includes K and is disjoint from L. This problem becomes interesting when the input languages K and L are drawn from language classes beyond the regular languages. For such classes, a mild and useful assumption is that they are full trios, i.e. closed under rational transductions. All the results on regular separability for full trios obtained so far exhibited a noteworthy correspondence with the intersection emptiness problem: In each case, regular separability is decidable if and only if intersection emptiness is decidable. This raises the question whether for full trios, regular separability can be reduced to intersection emptiness or vice-versa. We present counterexamples showing that neither of the two problems can be reduced to the other. More specifically, we describe full trios C_1, D_1, C_2, D_2 such that (i) intersection emptiness is decidable for C_1 and D_1, but regular separability is undecidable for C_1 and D_1 and (ii) regular separability is decidable for C_2 and D_2, but intersection emptiness is undecidable for C_2 and D_2