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3 Types of Structures Used in Modeling Computation

The document discusses three main types of structures used in modeling computation: grammars, finite-state machines, and Turing machines. Grammars are used to generate sentences in formal languages and determine if a sentence is part of a language. Finite-state machines recognize certain types of formal languages through a set of states and transitions. Turing machines are an abstract model of a computer used to model computable functions.

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59 views26 pages

3 Types of Structures Used in Modeling Computation

The document discusses three main types of structures used in modeling computation: grammars, finite-state machines, and Turing machines. Grammars are used to generate sentences in formal languages and determine if a sentence is part of a language. Finite-state machines recognize certain types of formal languages through a set of states and transitions. Turing machines are an abstract model of a computer used to model computable functions.

Uploaded by

Mohamed Sulaiman M
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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3 Types of Structures used in Modeling Computation

Grammars
• Used to generate sentences of a language and to determine if a given sentence is in a language
• Formal languages, generated by grammars, provide models for programming languages (Java, C,
etc) as well as natural language --- important for constructing compilers

Finite-State Machines (FSM)


• FSM are characterized by a set of states, an input alphabet, and transitions that assigns a next state
to a pair of state and an input. They are used in language recognition (equivalent to certain
grammar) but also for other tasks such as controlling vending machines

Turing Machine (TM)


• They are an abstraction of a computer used to compute number theoretic functions
Early Models of Computation

• Recursive Function Theory


Kleene, Church, Turing, Post, 1930’s (before computers!!)
• Turing Machines – Turing, 1940’s (defined: computable)
• RAM Machines – von Neumann, 1940’s (“real computer”)
• Cellular Automata – von Neumann, 1950’s
(Wolfram 2005; physics of our world?)
• Finite-state machines, pushdown automata
various people, 1950’s
• VLSI models – 1970s ( integrated circuits made of thousands of transistors form a
single chip)
• Parallel RAMs, etc. – 1980’s
Intro to Languages
• English grammar tells us if a given combination of words is a valid sentence.
• The syntax of a sentence concerns its form, while the semantics concerns its meaning.
e.g. the mouse wrote a poem

• From a syntax point of view this is a valid sentence.

• From a semantics point of view not …perhaps in Disney land

• Natural languages (English, French, Portguese, etc) have very complex rules of syntax and not
necessarily well-defined.
Formal Language
• Formal language – is specified by well-defined set of rules of syntax

• We describe the sentences of a formal language using a grammar.

• Two key questions:


1 - Is a combination of words a valid sentence in a formal language?
2 – How can we generate the valid sentences of a formal language?
• Formal languages provide models for both natural languages and programming languages.
Σ = {a, b},
Grammars
• A formal grammar G is any compact, precise mathematical definition
of a language L.
• As opposed to just a raw listing of all of the language’s legal sentences, or just
examples of them.
• A grammar implies an algorithm that would generate all legal
sentences of the language.
• Often, it takes the form of a set of recursive definitions.
• A popular way to specify a grammar recursively is to specify it as a
phrase-structure grammar.
Grammars
• Example: A grammar that generates a subset of the English language

sentence  noun _ phrase predicate

noun _ phrase  article noun

predicate  verb
article  a
article  the

noun  boy
noun  dog

verb  runs
verb  sleeps
• A derivation of “the boy sleeps”:

sentence  noun _ phrase predicate


 noun _ phrase verb
 article noun verb
 the noun verb
 the boy verb
 the boy sleeps
• A derivation of “a dog runs”:

sentence  noun _ phrase predicate


 noun _ phrase verb
 article noun verb
 a noun verb
 a dog verb
 a dog runs
Language of the grammar:

L = { “a boy runs”,
“a boy sleeps”,
“the boy runs”,
“the boy sleeps”,
“a dog runs”,
“a dog sleeps”,
“the dog runs”,
“the dog sleeps” }
Notation
noun  boy
noun  dog

Variable Terminal
or Production
Symbols of
Non-terminal rule
the vocabulary

Symbols of
the vocabulary
Basic Terminology
► A vocabulary/alphabet, V is a finite nonempty set of elements
called symbols.
• Example: V = {a, b, c, A, B, C, S}

► A word/sentence over V is a string of finite length of elements


of V.
• Example: Aba

► The empty/null string, λ is the string with no symbols.

► V* is the set of all words over V.


• Example: V* = {Aba, BBa, bAA, cab …}

► A language over V is a subset of V*.


Phrase-Structure Grammars
• A phrase-structure grammar
G = (V,T,S,P) is a 4-tuple, in which:
• V is a vocabulary (set of symbols)
• The “template vocabulary” of the language.
• T  V is a set of symbols called terminals
• Actual symbols of the language.
• Also, N :≡ V − T is a set of special “symbols” called nonterminals.
(Representing concepts like “noun”)
• SN is a special nonterminal, the start symbol.
• in our example the start symbol was “sentence”.
• P is a set of productions (to be defined).
• Rules for substituting one sentence fragment for another
• Every production rule must contain at least one nonterminal on its left
side.
Phrase-structure Grammar
► EXAMPLE:

 Let G = (V, T, S, P),

 where V = {a, b, A, B, S}
 T = {a, b},
 S is a start symbol
 P = {S → ABa, A → BB, B → ab, A → Bb}.

G is a Phrase-Structure Grammar.
What sentences can be generated
with this grammar?
Derivation
• Definition

• Let G=(V,T,S,P) be a phrase-structure grammar.

• Let w0=lz0r (the concatenation of l, z0, and r) w1=lz1r be strings over V.

• If z0  z1 is a production of G we say that w1 is directly derivable from w0 and we


write wo => w1.

• If w0, w1, …., wn are strings over V such that w0 =>w1,w1=>w2,…, wn-1 => wn, then
we say that wn is derivable from w0, and write w0=>*wn.

• The sequence of steps used to obtain wn from wo is called a derivation.


Language
• Let G(V,T,S,P) be a phrase-structure grammar. The
• language generated by G (or the language of G)
• denoted by L(G) , is the set of all strings of terminals
• that are derivable from the starting state S.

• L(G)= {w  T* | S =>*w}
Language L(G)
► EXAMPLE:

• Let G = (V, T, S, P), where V = {a, b, A, S}, T = {a, b}, S is a start


symbol and P = {S → aA, S → b, A → aa}.

• The language of this grammar is given by L (G) = {b, aaa};

1. we can derive aA from using S → aA, and then derive aaa using A →
aa.

2. We can also derive b using S → b.


Another example
• Grammar:
G=(V,T,S,P) T={a,b} P=
S  aSb
S 
V={a,b,S}

• Derivation of sentence : ab
S  aSb  ab

S  aSb S 
S  aSb
• Grammar: S 

aabb
• Derivation of sentence :
S  aSb  aaSbb  aabb

S  aSb S 
• Other derivations:
S  aSb  aaSbb  aaaSbbb  aaabbb
S  aSb  aaSbb  aaaSbbb
 aaaaSbbbb  aaaabbbb
So, what’s the language of the
grammar with the productions? S  aSb
S 
• Language of the grammar with the productions:
S  aSb
S 
n n
L  {a b : n  0}
G={(S,A),(a,b),S,P}
Automata
Types of Grammars - Chomsky hierarchy of languages

• Venn Diagram of Grammar Types:

Type 0 – Phrase-structure Grammars


Type 1 –
Context-Sensitive
Type 2 –
Context-Free
Type 3 –
Regular

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