Theory of Automata

Handout no 2

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Courtesy Costas Busch - RPI 2
Languages

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 Language

• In English, there are at least three

different types of entities: letters,
words, sentences.
• Letters are from a finite alphabet { a,
b, c, . . . , z }
• Words are made up of certain
combinations of letters from the
alphabet.
Not all combinations of letters lead to a valid English word.
• 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

• Informal language
• Incoherent strings are also
understandable
• Like idiom
• Raise ambiguity
– Interpretation varies with region
– Same words have multiple meanings.
• Like, light, base, etc.
 Informal languages

• Natural languages are generally

defined informally
• Human brain
– Capable to understand incoherent even
invalid sentences.
• You mangoes like
– Rectify grammatical errors etc.
– Resolve ambiguity
• Interpret according to context
• Supporting aids such as Facial expressions
and body language etc.
 How to Communicate with
machines ?
• Need a language: what sort
• Machines don’t have human mind
though may have its partial imitation
• Would fail on incorrect or ambiguous
input
– Some recovery or input corrections may be
proposed but again very limited.
• Thus need a precise, explicit and
universal definition of communication
language
 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
– Explicitly reject invalid input
 Formal Languages

• Need uniformly understandable

notation
• Representations
– Alphabet
• Represents a finite set of fundamental units of
lanauges, 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| = ?
 Finite vs. Infinite Languages

• Finite Languages
– Countable set of words
– Can be defined by rigorously listing the
words in 
– E.g. English-Words
• Infinite Languages
– Infinite set of valid words
– Cant be listed completely
– E.g. English_Sentences
 Infinite Languages
• Most of the languages are infinite
• How can u check whether a word
belongs to a language if it is
– Finite
• Checking its entry in 
– Infinite
• Validating against rules
 Defining Languages
• Define alphabet set
• Define rules for forming valid words and
sequences of words from 
– Called grammar
– Can be descriptive
– Can be mathematical
• Can also define supporting functions e.g.,
length(X), reverse(x)
 Defining languages
• Example ={a,b,…z}
– L = {all words formed only of odd number
of xs}
– L = {xn | n is odd}
– L = {all words of length less than or equal
to 4}
– PALINDROME ={Λ, all strings x such that
reverse (x) = x}
 Kleene Closure
• Set closure
• Kleene Closure (applied to )
– A set of all the strings (finite) that can be
formed by the elements of  where the
elements may be repeated any number of
times.
– Denoted by *
– Also called Kleene star.
• ∑* : The set of all strings over an
alphabet ∑ and called Kleene Star
Closure of alphabet. So we have
∑* = ∑0 U ∑1 U ∑2 U ∑3 U……………
• ∑+ : The set of all strings over an
alphabet ∑ excluding empty string, ε,
and called plus operation. So we
have
∑+ = ∑1 U ∑2 U ∑3 U……………
 Some observations
• Λ represents an empty string (not
alphabet thus not a part of )
• ε also represents the same
• ε is not equivalent to 
• If  =  then
 * = {Λ}
• Is S* == (S*)* and so on
 Alphabets and Strings
We will use small alphabets: a, b

Strings
a
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  a2 a1 bbbaaababa

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

Examples: abba 4
aa 2
a 1
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 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
2
Example: abba  abbaabba

0
Definition: w 
0
abba  
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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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 Languages
*
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}
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 Note that:

Sets  { } {}

Set size { }   0

Set size {} 1

String length  0
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 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

a, ba  , b, aa, ab, bb, aaa,

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 Reverse

R R
Definition: L {w : w  L}

Examples:ab, aab, baba R

ba, baa, abab

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
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a, b a, ba, ba, b 
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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