24,148 research outputs found
Partially-commutative context-free languages
The paper is about a class of languages that extends context-free languages
(CFL) and is stable under shuffle. Specifically, we investigate the class of
partially-commutative context-free languages (PCCFL), where non-terminal
symbols are commutative according to a binary independence relation, very much
like in trace theory. The class has been recently proposed as a robust class
subsuming CFL and commutative CFL. This paper surveys properties of PCCFL. We
identify a natural corresponding automaton model: stateless multi-pushdown
automata. We show stability of the class under natural operations, including
homomorphic images and shuffle. Finally, we relate expressiveness of PCCFL to
two other relevant classes: CFL extended with shuffle and trace-closures of
CFL. Among technical contributions of the paper are pumping lemmas, as an
elegant completion of known pumping properties of regular languages, CFL and
commutative CFL.Comment: In Proceedings EXPRESS/SOS 2012, arXiv:1208.244
Analytic aspects of the shuffle product
There exist very lucid explanations of the combinatorial origins of rational
and algebraic functions, in particular with respect to regular and context free
languages. In the search to understand how to extend these natural
correspondences, we find that the shuffle product models many key aspects of
D-finite generating functions, a class which contains algebraic. We consider
several different takes on the shuffle product, shuffle closure, and shuffle
grammars, and give explicit generating function consequences. In the process,
we define a grammar class that models D-finite generating functions
Controlled Bidirectional Grammars
We investigate context-free grammars the rules of which can be used in a productive and in a reductive fashion, while the application of these rules is controlled by a regular language. We distinguish several modes of derivation for this kind of grammar. The resulting language families (properly) extend the family of context-free languages. We establish some closure properties of these language families and some grammatical transformations which yield a few normal forms for this type of grammar. Finally, we consider some special cases (viz. the context-free grammar is linear or left-linear), and generalizations, in particular, the use of arbitrary rather than regular control languages
Generalizing input-driven languages: theoretical and practical benefits
Regular languages (RL) are the simplest family in Chomsky's hierarchy. Thanks
to their simplicity they enjoy various nice algebraic and logic properties that
have been successfully exploited in many application fields. Practically all of
their related problems are decidable, so that they support automatic
verification algorithms. Also, they can be recognized in real-time.
Context-free languages (CFL) are another major family well-suited to
formalize programming, natural, and many other classes of languages; their
increased generative power w.r.t. RL, however, causes the loss of several
closure properties and of the decidability of important problems; furthermore
they need complex parsing algorithms. Thus, various subclasses thereof have
been defined with different goals, spanning from efficient, deterministic
parsing to closure properties, logic characterization and automatic
verification techniques.
Among CFL subclasses, so-called structured ones, i.e., those where the
typical tree-structure is visible in the sentences, exhibit many of the
algebraic and logic properties of RL, whereas deterministic CFL have been
thoroughly exploited in compiler construction and other application fields.
After surveying and comparing the main properties of those various language
families, we go back to operator precedence languages (OPL), an old family
through which R. Floyd pioneered deterministic parsing, and we show that they
offer unexpected properties in two fields so far investigated in totally
independent ways: they enable parsing parallelization in a more effective way
than traditional sequential parsers, and exhibit the same algebraic and logic
properties so far obtained only for less expressive language families
Controlled Rewriting Using Productions and Reductions
We investigate context-free grammars the rules of which can be used in a productive and in a reductive fashion, while the application of these rules is controlled by a regular language. We distinguish several modes of derivation for this kind of grammar. The resulting language families (properly) extend the family of context-free languages. We establish some closure properties of these language families and some grammatical transformations which yield a few normal forms for this type of grammar. Finally, we consider some special cases (viz. the context-free grammar is linear or left-linear), and generalizations, in particular, the use of arbitrary rather than regular control languages
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