Revision as of 14:37, 25 November 2007

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Introduction

Scattered context grammars were introduced by S. Greibach and J. Hopcroft in 1969 as a straightforward generalization of context-free grammars. Each production of these grammars contains n context-free productions which are applied in parallel to the current sentential form. For example a scattered context production which consists of three context-free productions, , is applicable to the sentential form , so . It is easy to see that by adding productions and , where is the start symbol of the grammar, we can easily describe the non-context-free language . The first advantage of scattered context grammars can be seen here - by using several context-free productions in parallel, we are able to describe some context-sensitive languages. Furthermore, by only extending context-free grammars, which are well studied and used in many practical applications, we preserve the simplicity of language description. In addition, for modeling context dependencies which span over the whole sentential form (for example in the above example), the description is much simpler than when using context-sensitive grammars.

Basic Definitions

Formal Languages

The reader is expected to be familiar with the basics of formal language theory. This section is meant to describe the used terminology rather than to explain the basics of formal language theory.

(pdf) A. Salomaa. Formal Languages. Academic Press, 1973, pp. 322.

(pdf) G. Rozenberg and A. Salomaa. Handbook of Formal Languages. Springer, 1997, pp. 2051.

(pdf) A. Meduna. Automata and Languages: Theory and Applications. Springer, 2000, pp. 920.

Scattered Context Grammars

(pdf) S. Greibach, J. Hopcroft. Scattered Context Grammars. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 1969, pp. 233-247.

Results

Known Results

Normal Forms of Propagating Scattered Context Grammars

(pdf) S. Greibach, J. Hopcroft. Scattered Context Grammars. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 1969, pp. 233-247.

Closure Properties of Propagating Scattered Context Grammars

(pdf) S. Greibach, J. Hopcroft. Scattered Context Grammars. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 1969, pp. 233-247.

Extended Propagating Scattered Context Grammars

(pdf) J. Gonczarowski, M. K. Warmuth. Scattered Versus Context-Sensitive Rewriting. Acta Informatica, 1989, pp. 81-95.

Propagating Scattered Context Grammars Using Leftmost Derivations

(pdf) V. Virkkunen. On Scattered Context Grammars. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis, 1973, pp. 75-82.

Power of Scattered Context Grammars

(pdf) V. Virkkunen. On Scattered Context Grammars. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis, 1973, pp. 75-82.

Reduction of Scattered Context Grammars

(pdf) A. Meduna. Generative Power of Three-Nonterminal Scattered Context Grammars. Theoretical Computer Science, 2000, pp. 625-631.

(pdf) A. Meduna. Economical Transformations of Scattered Context Grammars to Phrase-Structure Grammars. Acta Cybernetica, 1998, pp. 225-242.

(pdf) G. Vaszil. On the Descriptional Complexity of Some Rewriting Mechanisms Regulated by Context Conditions. Theoretical Computer Science, 2005, pp. 361-373.

Own Research

Generation of Sentences with Their Parses

(pdf) A. Meduna, J. Techet. Generation of Sentences with Their Parses: the Case of Propagating Scattered Context Grammars. Acta Cybernetica, 2005, pp. 11-20.

(pdf) J. Techet. Scattered Context Generators of Sentences with Their Parses. Pre-proceedings of the 1st Doctoral Workshop on Mathematical and Engineering Methods in Computer Science, 2005, pp. 68-77. (pdf) A. Meduna, J. Techet. Canonical Scattered Context Generators of Sentences with Their Parses (to appear). Theoretical Computer Science, 2007/8, pp. ???-???. (pdf) A. Meduna, J. Techet. Reduction of Scattered Context Generators of Sentences Preceded by Their Leftmost Parses. Proceedings of 9th International Workshop on Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems, 2007, pp. 178-185.

(pdf) H. C. M. Kleijn and G. Rozenberg. On the Generative Power of Regular Pattern Grammars. Acta Informatica, 1983, pp. 391-411.

k-Limited Erasing

(pdf) J. Techet. k-Limited Erasing Performed by Scattered Context Grammars. Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Formal Models WFM '07, 2007, pp. 227-234.

Scattered Context Grammars with Non-Context-Free Components

(pdf) J. Techet. A Note on Scattered Context Grammars with Non-Context-Free Components. MEMICS 2007 Proceedings, 2007, pp. 225-232. (pdf) O. Ibarra. Simple Matrix Languages. Information and Control, 1970, pp. 359-394.

(pdf) G. Paun. Linear Simple Matrix Languages. Elektronische Informationsverarbeitung und Kybernetik, 1978, pp. 377-384.

Maximal and Minimal Rewriting

(pdf) A. Meduna, J. Techet. Maximal and Minimal Scattered Context Rewriting. FCT 2007 Proceedings, 2007, pp. 412-423.

(pdf) Takumi Kasai. An Hierarchy Between Context-Free and Context-Sensitive Languages. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 1970, pp. 492-508.

n-Limited Derivations

(pdf) Takumi Kasai. An Hierarchy Between Context-Free and Context-Sensitive Languages. Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 1970, pp. 492-508.

Related Literature

(pdf) H. Fernau. Scattered Context Grammars with Regulation. Annals of Bucharest University, Mathematics-Informatics Series, 1996, pp. 41-49.

(pdf) D. Milgram, A Rosenfeld. A Note on Scattered Context Grammars. Information Processing Letters, 1971, pp. 47-50.

(pdf) Armin B. Cremers. Normal Forms for Context-Sensitive Grammars. Acta Informatica, 1973, pp. 59-73.

(pdf) J. Techet. Částečně paralelní generování jazyků. Faculty of Information Technology BUT, 2005, pp. 55.

Jiri 12:35, 23 November 2007 (CET)