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Differences Between Natural and Formal Languages

Python is a formal programming language that was designed for specific computational applications. Formal languages like Python have strict syntax rules for tokens and structure and are unambiguous, unlike natural languages. The first program commonly written in a new programming language is "Hello, World!" which simply displays that text. In Python, this is done using the print statement or function to output "Hello, World!" to the screen without any other meaning.

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304 views8 pages

Differences Between Natural and Formal Languages

Python is a formal programming language that was designed for specific computational applications. Formal languages like Python have strict syntax rules for tokens and structure and are unambiguous, unlike natural languages. The first program commonly written in a new programming language is "Hello, World!" which simply displays that text. In Python, this is done using the print statement or function to output "Hello, World!" to the screen without any other meaning.

Uploaded by

riaz ahamed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Python Programming

NATURAL AND FORMAL LANGUAGES


Formal and natural languages
 Natural languages are the languages people
speak, such as English, Spanish, and French.
They were not designed by people, they evolved
naturally.
Formal languages are languages that are
designed by people for specific applications.
For example, the notation that mathematicians
use is a formal language that is particularly good
at denoting relationships among numbers and
symbols. Chemists use a formal language to
represent the chemical structure of molecules.
Formal Languages

 Programming languages are formal languages


that have been designed to express
computations.
Formal languages tend to have strict rules about
syntax.
 For example, 3 + 3 = 6 is a syntactically correct
mathematical statement, but 3+ = 3$6 is not.
H2O is a syntactically correct chemical formula,
but 2Zz is not.
Formal Languages

Syntax rules come in two flavors, pertaining to


tokens and structure.
Tokens are the basic elements of the language,
such as words, numbers, and chemical elements.
One of the problems with 3+ = 3$6 is that $ is
not a legal token in mathematics.
The second type of syntax rule pertains to the
structure of a statement; that is, the way the
tokens are arranged.
The statement 3+ = 3 is illegal because even
though + and = are legal tokens, it can’t have
one right after the other.
Differences-Ambiguity
Ambiguity (unclear or not clear) : Natural
languages are full of ambiguity, which people deal
with by using contextual clues and other
information.
Formal languages are designed to be nearly or
completely unambiguous, which means that any
statement has exactly one meaning, regardless of
context.
Differences-Redundancy and Literalness
Redundancy (unnecessary use of more than
one word): In order to make up for ambiguity
and reduce misunderstandings, natural languages
employ lots of redundancy.
As a result, they are often verbose. Formal
languages are less redundant and more concise.
Literalness (understanding exact words and
rather than un extended words): Natural
languages are full of idiom and metaphor. If I say,
“The penny dropped,” there is probably no penny
and nothing dropping. Formal languages mean
exactly what they say.
The First program
Traditionally, the first program written in a new
language is called “Hello, World!” because all it
does is display the words “Hello,World!”.

In Python, it looks like this:

print 'Hello, World!'


The First program
This is an example of a print statement, which
doesn’t actually print anything on paper. It
displays a value on the screen. In this case, the
result is the words
Hello, World!
The quotation marks mark the beginning and end
of the text to be displayed but they don’t appear
in the result.
In Python 3, the syntax is slightly different:
print ('Hello, World!')
The parentheses indicate that print is a function.

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