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Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XVII pp 107–127Cite as

Finite Automata with Translucent Letters Applied in Natural and Formal Language Theory

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((TCCI,volume 8790))

Abstract

An important direction of computational and formal linguistics is to find good (mathematical and computational) models to describe linguistic phenomena. These models can also help to understand language acquisition, thinking and other mental activities. In this paper we consider finite automata with translucent letters. These models do not read their input strictly from left to right as traditional finite automata, but for each internal state of such a device, certain letters are translucent, that is, in this state the automaton cannot see them. We solve the parsing problem of these automata, both in the deterministic and in the nondeterministic cases. By introducing the permutation operator the class of regular languages is extended. It is shown that this extended class inside the class of languages that can be accepted by nondeterministic finite automata with translucent letters. Some interesting examples from the formal language theory and from a segment of the Hungarian language are shown presenting the applicability of finite automata with translucent letters both in formal and natural languages.

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Acknowledgements

The comments of the reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. The publication was supported by the TÁMOP-4.2.2/C-11/1/KONV-2012-0001 project. The project has been supported by the European Union, co-financed by the European Social Fund. This paper is an extended version of the paper [17], presented at ICAART 2013, Barcelona.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Informatics, University of Debrecen, PO Box 12, Debrecen, Hungary

    Benedek Nagy

  2. Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Eastern Mediterranean University, Mersin-10, Famagusta, North Cyprus, Turkey

    Benedek Nagy

  3. Department of Information Technology, University of Miskolc, Miskolc-Egyetemváros, Hungary

    László Kovács

Authors
  1. Benedek Nagy
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  2. László Kovács
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Benedek Nagy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Informatics, Wrocław University of Technology, Wrocław, Poland

    Ngoc Thanh Nguyen

  2. Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia and Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Ryszard Kowalczyk

  3. Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana Fred

  4. Polytechnic Institute of Sétubal, Sétubal, Portugal

    Filipe Joaquim

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Nagy, B., Kovács, L. (2014). Finite Automata with Translucent Letters Applied in Natural and Formal Language Theory. In: Nguyen, N., Kowalczyk, R., Fred, A., Joaquim, F. (eds) Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XVII. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8790. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44994-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44994-3_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44993-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44994-3

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