Theory of Computation

Lecture 8
Grammars & CFG
Dr. Samar Hesham
Department of Computer Science
Faculty of Computers and AI
Cairo University
Egypt

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Syllabus and Terminologies

 Regular Languages .. Regular Sets

 REs (Regular Expressions)
 FSMs (or FSA/FA) … Finite State Machines/Automata
 DFSM/DFA vs. NDFSM/NFA … Deterministic vs. Non-deterministic FSM
 Comparison and conversion
 Examples & Closure Operations
 Context Free Languages
 CFGs … Context Free Grammars
 PDA … Push Down Automata
 Some applications
 Turing Machine

5/31/2024 FCI-CU-EG 2
Languages

 Finite Automata accept all regular languages and only

regular languages

 Many simple languages are non regular:

- {anbn : n = 0, 1, 2, …}
- {w : w a is palindrome}
and there is no finite automata that accepts them.

 Context-free Languages (CFLs) are a larger class of

languages that encompasses all regular languages and many
others, including the two above.
 n n R
{a b } {ww }

Regular Languages

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 Context-Free Languages

n n R
{a b } {ww }

Regular Languages

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Regular Languages

 Three equivalent formal ways to approach

Regular Languages
Specification
Regular Expressions

Regular
Languages

Finite State Automata Regular Grammars

Implementation Representation
 Context-Free Languages

Context-Free Pushdown
Grammars Automata stack

automaton

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What is a Grammar
 A grammar is a precise description of a formal
language.
 It describes what possible sequence of symbols/strings
constitute valid words or sentences in that language
 Natural Formal Languages:
 Arabic, English, French, Spanish … etc
 Programming Languages:
 C, C++, Java, C#, HTML, XML …

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What is a Grammar
 A grammar G <N, Σ ,P, S> consists of the following
components:
1. A finite set N of non-terminal symbols or variables.
2. A finite set Σ of terminal symbols that are disjoint from N.
3. A finite set P of production rules of the form
(Σ U N)* N (Σ U N)* → (Σ U N)*
where * is the Kleene star operator and U denotes the set
union. Each production rule maps from one string of
symbols to another where the left hand side contains at
least one non terminal symbol.
4. A distinguished start symbol S ∈ N.

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Regular languages
 A language is said to be a regular language if it is generated by
a regular grammar.
 A grammar is said to be regular if it's either right-linear or left-
linear.
 Specifically, a grammar G <N, Σ ,P, S> is said to be:
 right-linear if each of its production rules is either in the form
A → xA or A → x,
 left-linear if each of its production rules is either in the form
A → Bx or B → x,
 Where:
 A and B are non terminal symbols in N and,

 x is a string of terminal symbols in Σ*.

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Example
 Let A={a,b,c}, then the grammar for the A* language
can be described by the following production rules:
S→ 
S→aS
S→bS
S→cS
 How do we know that this grammar describes the
language A*?
We must be able to describe each string of the language in terms of the
grammar rules.
 Prove that the string aacb is in A*???

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Example
 If A={a,b,c}, and the production rules is the set P the
grammar G=<N, Σ,P,S> ≡ <{S,A,B}, {a,b}, P, S>,
where P ≡ S→AB A→  |aA B→  |bB.
 Let us derive the string aab:
S⇒AB⇒aAB⇒aaAB⇒aaB⇒aabB⇒aab.

 Note: that the language can have more than one grammar.
So we should not be surprised when two people come up
with two different grammar for the same language.

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Combining grammars
Suppose M and N are languages whose grammars have disjoint sets of
non-terminals. Suppose also that the start symbols for the grammars M
and N are A and B respectively. We can obtain the following new
languages and grammars:

Union Rule: the language M ∪ N starts with the production rule

S→A|B.

Product Rule: the language M ∙ N starts with the production

S → A B.

Closure Rule: the language M* starts with the production

S →AS | .

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Context-free languages
 A language is said to be context-free if it is generated by context-free
grammar (CFG).
 A grammar G <N, Σ, P, S> is context-free if the production
rules are of the form N → (N U Σ)*.
 Unlike regular grammars, the right-hand sides of the production rules
in CFGs are unrestricted and can be any combination of terminals
and non-terminals.
 Regular languages (RLs) are subsets of context free languages
(CFLs).
 Things that cannot be expressed by regular grammar, but needed in
Parsing of CFLs:
 Palindromes.

 Balanced brackets.

 Counting!! 14
CFG
 A context-free grammar is a notation for defining
context free languages.
 It is more powerful than finite automata or REs, but
still cannot define all possible languages.
 Useful for nested structures, e.g., parentheses in
programming languages.
 Basic idea is to use “variables” (non-terminals) to
stand for sets of strings.
 These variables are defined recursively, in terms of
one another.
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CFG
 CFG is used to generate the strings belonging to CFL.
 Each production has the form A → w, where A is a
nonterminal and w is a string of terminals and non-
terminals.
 Any non-terminal can be expanded out to any of its
productions at any point.
 Language of a CFG: set of strings of terminals that
can be derived from its start symbol
 Pushdown Automata (PDA) is the automata capable
of accepting languages defined by CFGs.
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CFGs: Alternate Definition
Many textbooks use different symbols and terms to
describe CFG’s
G = (V, S, P, S)
V = variables a finite set
S = alphabet or terminals a finite set
P = productions a finite set
S = start variable SV

Productions’ form, where AV, a(VS)*:

 A  a
 Definition: Context-Free Grammars
Grammar G  (V , T , S , P )

Variables Terminal Start

symbols variables

Productions of the form:

A x
x is string of variables and terminals 18
CSG
 A context-sensitive grammar is a notation for
defining context sensitive languages.
 Each production has the form wAx → wyx
 where w and x are strings of terminals and non-terminals
and y is a string of terminals
 The productions give rules saying "if you see A in a
given context, you may replace A by the string y

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