DEBRE MARKOS UNIVERSITY

BURIE CAMPUS
DEPARTMENT COMPUTER
SCIENCES

FORMAL LANGUAGE THEORY

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 outlines
 Introduction
 Alphabet
 Strings
 Languages
 Grammars
 Automata

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 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
 Formal language is an abstract of the general
characteristic of programming language.
 It is the set of all strings permitted by the rules of
formation.
 It consists of a set of symbols and some rules of
formation by which these symbols can be
combined into entities called sentences.

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 Alphabet
 It is finite set of symbols and denoted by 
Example
1 = {a, b, c, d, …, z}: the set of letters in English
2 = {0, 1, …, 9}: the set of (base 10) digits
3 = {a, b, …, z, #}: the set of letters plus the
special symbol #
4 = {(, )}: the set of open and closed brackets

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 Strings
it is finite set of symbols over 

We will use small alphabets:    a, b

a
Strings
ab u  ab
abba v  bbbaaa
baba w  abba
aaabbbaabab
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 String Operations

w  a1a2  an abba
v  b1b2 bm bbbaaa

Concatenation

wv  a1a2  anb1b2 bm abbabbbaaa

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w  a1a2  an ababaaabbb

Reverse

R
w  an a2a1 bbbaaababa

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 String Length
w  a1a2  an
Length: w n

Examples: abba  4
aa  2
a 1
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 Recursive Definition of Length
For any letter: a 1

For any string wa : wa  w  1

Example: abba  abb  1

 ab  1  1
 a 111
 1111
4 9
 Length of Concatenation

uv  u  v

Example: u  aab, u  3
v  abaab, v  5

uv  aababaab  8
uv  u  v  3  5  8
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 Empty String
A string with no letters: 

Observations:  0

w  w  w

abba  abba  abba

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 Substring
Substring of string:
a subsequence of consecutive characters

String Substring
abbab ab
abbab abba
abbab b
abbab bbab
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 Prefix and Suffix
abbab
Prefixes Suffixes
 abbab w  uv
a bbab
prefix
ab bab
suffix
abb ab
abba b
abbab 
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 Another Operation
n
w  ww w
 
n

Example:  abba   abbaabba

2

0
Definition: w 

 abba   
0

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 The * Operation
 * : the set of all possible strings from
alphabet 

   a, b
*    , a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, aab,

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 The + Operation
 : the set of all possible strings from

alphabet  except 

   a, b
*    , a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, aab,


   * 

   a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, aab,
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 Language
A language is any subset of *

Example:    a, b
*    , a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa,

Languages:  
 a, aa, aab
{ , abba, baba, aa, ab, aaaaaa} 17
 Another Example

n n
An infinite language L  {a b : n  0}


ab L abb  L
aabb
aaaaabbbbb
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 Operations on Languages
The usual set operations

 a, ab, aaaa  bb, ab  {a, ab, bb, aaaa}

 a, ab, aaaa  bb, ab  {ab}
 a, ab, aaaa   bb, ab   a, aaaa
Complement: L   * L

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 Reverse

R R
Definition: L  {w : w  L}

Examples:  ab, aab, baba   ba, baa, abab

R

n n
L  {a b : n  0}

R n n
L  {b a : n  0}
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 Concatenation

Definition: L1L2   xy : x  L1, y  L2 

Example:  a, ab, ba b, aa

  ab, aaa, abb, abaa, bab, baaa

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 Another Operation
Definition: n
L  LL L
n

 a, b   a, b a, b a, b 
3

 aaa, aab, aba, abb, baa, bab, bba, bbb

0
Special case: L   

 a , bba , aaa  0   
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 Star-Closure (Kleene *)

0 1 2
Definition: L*  L  L  L 

Example:
 , 
a, bb, 
 
 a, bb *   
 aa , abb, bba , bbbb, 
aaa, aabb, abba, abbbb,
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 Positive Closure

 1 2
Definition: L  L  L 
 L *   

a, bb, 
  
 a, bb  aa, abb, bba, bbbb, 
aaa, aabb, abba, abbbb,
 
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Examples of language generated by RE
a | b = {a,b}
2- (a|b)a = {aa,ba}
3- (ab) | ε ={ab, ε}
4- ((a|b)a)* = {ε, aa,ba,aaaa,baba,....}
5- (a | c)*b(a|c)* ={b, abc, abaca, baaaac,
ccbaca, cccccb} (construct its DFA)

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 Grammar
Grammar is a mechanism to describe the languages.
A grammar (G) is defined as a quadruple
G = (V, T, S, P)
where
V = Finite set of objects called VARIABLES
T = Finite set of objects called TERMINAL SYMBOLS
S ∈ V = Start variables
P = Finite set of Productions.
A production rule P is of the form X Y

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 Con--
Given a grammar G defined by the production
rules
S ->AB
A ->Aa
B ->Bb
A-> a
B ->b
Show that the word w = a2b4 is L(G)

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 Automata
 An abstract machine which can be used to implement
regular expressions .
 Has a finite number of states, and a finite amount of
memory (i.e., the current state).
 Can be represented by directed graphs or transition
tables
 type of automata
 Deterministic finite automata (DFA)
 Non deterministic finite automata(NDFA)

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