CSC312

Automata Theory
Lecture # 2

Languages
 Alphabet and Strings
Alphabet: An alphabet is a finite set of symbols,
usually letters, digits, and punctuations.
Valid/In-valid alphabets: An alphabet may contain
letters consisting of group of symbols for example
Σ= {a, ba, bab, d}.
Remarks: While defining an alphabet of letters
consisting of more than one symbols, no letter
should be started with the letter of the same
alphabet i.e. one letter should not be the prefix of
another. However, a letter may be ended in a
letter of same alphabet.
  a, ba: , c
Valid alphabet
  a, ab:, c
Invalid alphabet
2
 Alphabets and Strings
String or word: A finite sequence of
letters/alphabets
Examples: “cat”, “dog”, “house”, “read”
…
Defined over an alphabet:
 a, b, c, , z

Language: A language is a set of

strings constructed from some
alphabet e.g. Urdu, English, Java, the
set of all binary strings 3
Sentences are made up of certain
combinations of words.
Not all combinations of words lead to a valid English sentence.

So we see that some basic units are

combined to make bigger units.
 Languages
How can you tell whether a given
sentence belongs to a particular
languages
Black is cat the
The tea is hot
I like chocolates two much
Rules give a clue to forming as well as
validating sentences.
 Formal vs. Informal Rules

Informal language -> abstract

languages
Incoherent strings are also
understandable
Slang, idiom, dialect etc.
Raise ambiguity
Interpretation varies with region
I am through (BrE/AmE)
Same words have multiple meanings.
Like, light, base, etc.
 Summary of Languages

Three aspects/specifications
Lexical
Defines valid words/units of a language
Syntactic
Defines rules for combining the units to
form valid sentences (computer
programs in context of machines)
Semantic
Concerned with the interpretation or
meaning of a sentence (what output
to produce in context of machines)
Affected by ambiguity the most.
 Formal languages

Rules defined explicitly and clearly

No ambiguities
Universally uniform understanding
Lets the machine
Interpret an input uniformly every time.
i.e. always produces same output for a
particular input
Avoid crashes because of ambiguity.
Explicitly and categorically reject invalid
input
 Formal Languages

Need uniformly understandable notation

Representations
Alphabet
Represents a finite set of fundamental
units of language, e.g. for English
={a,b,….z.A,…Z,}
∑ = {0,1}
∑ = {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}
 Formal Languages

List of words
Set of all valid words of a given
language, e.g., a language
English_Words that contains all valid
words of English would have a  =
{all entries of the dictionary +
punctuation marks and blank space}
Denoted by 
Strings: A string a finite sequence of symbols
chosen from alphabet. For example
0111100 , 123045, abbbcdeg etc.
String Variable: A letter used for
denoting a string. The author uses w, x, y
and z as string variable. For example
w = 0111100 , x = 123045, z =
abbbcdeg
Length of String: The number of
positions for symbols in the string. For
simplicity we can say that it is the
number of symbols in the string. For
example
|w| = 7 , |x| = ? , |z| = ?
 Alphabets and Strings
We will use small letters for alphabets:
 a, b
Strings
a
ab
abba
baba
aaabbbaabab
12
 String Operations
Let we have following strings
w a1a2  an abba
v b1b2 bm bbbaaa
Concatenation
wv a1a2  anb1b2 bm abbabbbaaa
Reverse
R
w an  a2 a1 abba
aaabbb
13
 String Length
w a1a2  an
Length: w n

Examples: abba 4
aa 2
a 1
14
 Length of Concatenation

uv  u  v

Example: u aab, u 3
v abaab, v 5

uv  aababaab 8
uv  u  v 3  5 8
15
 Empty String
A string with no letters:  or  or 
Observations:  0

 w w w
 abba abba abba
Note-1: A language that does not
contain any word at all is denoted
by  or { }. This language doesn’t
contain any word not even the
NULL string. i.e. { } ≠ {}
16
 Empty String
Note-2: Suppose a language L
doesn’t contain NULL then
L=L+
but L ≠ L + {}.

Important : NULL is identity element

with respect to concatenation.

17
 Substring
Substring of string:
a subsequence of consecutive
characters

String Substring
abbab ab
abbab abba
abbab b
abbab bbab
18
 Prefix and Suffix
Let the string isabbab
Prefixes Suffixes
 abbab w uv
a bbab
prefix
ab bab
suffix
abb ab
abba b
abbab 
19
 Repeat Operation
n
w - w repeated n time; that is,

2
Example:abba  abbaabba
0
w 
0
Definition: abba  

20
 The * Operation
: the set of all possible strings from
* alphabet , called closure of alphabets also

known as Kleene star operator or Kleene star closure.

 a, b
i.e. infinitely many words each of finite length.
*  , a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, aab,

21
 The + Operation
: the set of all possible strings from
 alphabet except , also known as Kleene plus operator.
 
 a, b
* 
Note :
 , a , b , aa , ab , ba ,
are infinite
bb, aaa , aab, 

  *  

 a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa, aab,

 * and 
22
 Languages
A language is a set of strings OR
A language is any subset of  * , usually
denoted by L. It may be finite or infinite.
Example:  a, b

*  , a, b, aa, ab, ba, bb, aaa,

Languages:

a, aa, aab
{ , abba, baba, aa, ab, aaaaaa}
If a string w is in L, we say that w is a
sentence of L.
23
 Note that:

Sets  { } {}

Set size { }   0

Set size {} 1

String length  0
24
 Another Example

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


ab
L abb  L
aabb
aaaaabbbbb
25
 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

a, ba  , b, aa, ab, bb, aaa,

26
 Reverse
Definition: LR {w R : w  L}
R
Examples:ab, aab, baba ba, baa, abab
n n
L {a b : n 0}
R n n
L {b a : n 0}
Concatenation
Definition: L1L2  xy : x  L1, y  L2 

Examples: a, ab, ba b, aa

 ab, aaa, abb, abaa, bab, baaa
27
 Repeat Operation
Definition: n
L LL L
n
L concatenated with itself n times.
3
a, b a, ba, ba, b 
aaa, aab, aba, abb, baa, bab, bba, bbb

Special case:L  
0

 a, bba, aaa  
0

28
 More Examples

n n
L {a b : n 0}

2 n n m m
L {a b a b : n, m 0}

2
aabbaaabbb  L

29
 Star-Closure (Kleene *)

0 1 2
Definition: L* L  L  L 

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

30
 Positive Closure

 1 2
Definition: L L  L 
L *   
a, bb, 
  
a, bb aa, abb, bba, bbbb, 
aaa, aabb, abba, abbbb,
 
Note: L+ includes  if and only if L includes

31