Splicing representations of strictly locally testable languages

AbstractThe relationship between the family SH of simple splicing languages, which was recently introduced by Mateescu et al. and the family SLT of strictly locally testable languages is clarified by establishing an ascending hierarchy of families {SiH: i⩾ − 1} of splicing languages for which SH = S1H and the union of the families is the family SLT. A procedure is given which, for an arbitrary regular language L, determines whether L is in SLT and, when L is in SLT, specifies constructively the smallest family in the hierarchy to which L belongs. Examples are given of sets of restriction enzymes for which the action on DNA molecules is naturally represented by splicing systems of the types discussed

Strictly Locally Testable and Resources Restricted Control Languages in Tree-Controlled Grammars

Tree-controlled grammars are context-free grammars where the derivation process is controlled in such a way that every word on a level of the derivation tree must belong to a certain control language. We investigate the generative capacity of such tree-controlled grammars where the control languages are special regular sets, especially strictly locally testable languages or languages restricted by resources of the generation (number of non-terminal symbols or production rules) or acceptance (number of states). Furthermore, the set theoretic inclusion relations of these subregular language families themselves are studied.Comment: In Proceedings AFL 2023, arXiv:2309.0112

Higher-Order Operator Precedence Languages

Floyd's Operator Precedence (OP) languages are a deterministic context-free family having many desirable properties. They are locally and parallely parsable, and languages having a compatible structure are closed under Boolean operations, concatenation and star; they properly include the family of Visibly Pushdown (or Input Driven) languages. OP languages are based on three relations between any two consecutive terminal symbols, which assign syntax structure to words. We extend such relations to k-tuples of consecutive terminal symbols, by using the model of strictly locally testable regular languages of order k at least 3. The new corresponding class of Higher-order Operator Precedence languages (HOP) properly includes the OP languages, and it is still included in the deterministic (also in reverse) context free family. We prove Boolean closure for each subfamily of structurally compatible HOP languages. In each subfamily, the top language is called max-language. We show that such languages are defined by a simple cancellation rule and we prove several properties, in particular that max-languages make an infinite hierarchy ordered by parameter k. HOP languages are a candidate for replacing OP languages in the various applications where they have have been successful though sometimes too restrictive.Comment: In Proceedings AFL 2017, arXiv:1708.0622

A Characterization for Decidable Separability by Piecewise Testable Languages

The separability problem for word languages of a class $\mathcal{C}$ by languages of a class $\mathcal{S}$ asks, for two given languages $I$ and $E$ from $\mathcal{C}$, whether there exists a language $S$ from $\mathcal{S}$ that includes $I$ and excludes $E$, that is, $I \subseteq S$ and $S\cap E = \emptyset$. In this work, we assume some mild closure properties for $\mathcal{C}$ and study for which such classes separability by a piecewise testable language (PTL) is decidable. We characterize these classes in terms of decidability of (two variants of) an unboundedness problem. From this, we deduce that separability by PTL is decidable for a number of language classes, such as the context-free languages and languages of labeled vector addition systems. Furthermore, it follows that separability by PTL is decidable if and only if one can compute for any language of the class its downward closure wrt. the scattered substring ordering (i.e., if the set of scattered substrings of any language of the class is effectively regular). The obtained decidability results contrast some undecidability results. In fact, for all (non-regular) language classes that we present as examples with decidable separability, it is undecidable whether a given language is a PTL itself. Our characterization involves a result of independent interest, which states that for any kind of languages $I$ and $E$, non-separability by PTL is equivalent to the existence of common patterns in $I$ and $E$

Conditional Lindenmayer systems with subregular conditions : the extended case

We study the generative power of extended conditional Lindenmayer systems where the conditions are finite, monoidal, combinational, definite, nilpotent, strictly locally (k)-testable, commutative, circular, suffix-closed, starfree, and union-free regular languages. The results correspond to those obtained for conditional context-free languages