Coalgebraic characterizations of context-free languages

Article / Letter to editorLeiden Inst Advanced Computer Science

Context-free languages, coalgebraically

We give a coalgebraic account of context-free languages using the functor ${\cal D}(X) = 2 \times X^A$ for deterministic automata over an alphabet $A$, in three different but equivalent ways: (i) by viewing context-free grammars as ${\cal D}$-coalgebras; (ii) by defining a format for behavioural differential equations (w.r.t. ${\cal D}$) for which the unique solutions are precisely the context-free languages; and (iii) as the ${\cal D}$-coalgebra of generalized regular expressions in which the Kleene star is replaced by a unique fixed point operator. In all cases, semantics is defined by the unique homomorphism into the final coalgebra of all languages, thus paving the way for coinductive proofs of context-free language equivalence. Furthermore, the three characterizations are elementary to the extent that they can serve as the basis for the definition of a general coalgebraic notion of context-freeness, which we see as the ultimate long-term goal of the present study

Towards a Uniform Theory of Effectful State Machines

Using recent developments in coalgebraic and monad-based semantics, we present a uniform study of various notions of machines, e.g. finite state machines, multi-stack machines, Turing machines, valence automata, and weighted automata. They are instances of Jacobs' notion of a T-automaton, where T is a monad. We show that the generic language semantics for T-automata correctly instantiates the usual language semantics for a number of known classes of machines/languages, including regular, context-free, recursively-enumerable and various subclasses of context free languages (e.g. deterministic and real-time ones). Moreover, our approach provides new generic techniques for studying the expressivity power of various machine-based models.Comment: final version accepted by TOC

Proper Functors and Fixed Points for Finite Behaviour

The rational fixed point of a set functor is well-known to capture the behaviour of finite coalgebras. In this paper we consider functors on algebraic categories. For them the rational fixed point may no longer be fully abstract, i.e. a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Inspired by \'Esik and Maletti's notion of a proper semiring, we introduce the notion of a proper functor. We show that for proper functors the rational fixed point is determined as the colimit of all coalgebras with a free finitely generated algebra as carrier and it is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. Moreover, we prove that a functor is proper if and only if that colimit is a subcoalgebra of the final coalgebra. These results serve as technical tools for soundness and completeness proofs for coalgebraic regular expression calculi, e.g. for weighted automata

Monadic Second-Order Logic and Bisimulation Invariance for Coalgebras

Generalizing standard monadic second-order logic for Kripke models, we introduce monadic second-order logic interpreted over coalgebras for an arbitrary set functor. Similar to well-known results for monadic second-order logic over trees, we provide a translation of this logic into a class of automata, relative to the class of coalgebras that admit a tree-like supporting Kripke frame. We then consider invariance under behavioral equivalence of formulas; more in particular, we investigate whether the coalgebraic mu-calculus is the bisimulation-invariant fragment of monadic second-order logic. Building on recent results by the third author we show that in order to provide such a coalgebraic generalization of the Janin-Walukiewicz Theorem, it suffices to find what we call an adequate uniform construction for the functor. As applications of this result we obtain a partly new proof of the Janin-Walukiewicz Theorem, and bisimulation invariance results for the bag functor (graded modal logic) and all exponential polynomial functors. Finally, we consider in some detail the monotone neighborhood functor, which provides coalgebraic semantics for monotone modal logic. It turns out that there is no adequate uniform construction for this functor, whence the automata-theoretic approach towards bisimulation invariance does not apply directly. This problem can be overcome if we consider global bisimulations between neighborhood models: one of our main technical results provides a characterization of the monotone modal mu-calculus extended with the global modalities, as the fragment of monadic second-order logic for the monotone neighborhood functor that is invariant for global bisimulations