A. Ehrenfeucht
ABSTRACT
Formal language theory deals with a variety of classes of languages. Some of these are abstracting features of languages used for communication (as e.g., natural languages, programming languages or languages used in logic), some of them are abstracting features of languages used for description of processes (as e.g. basic classes of L languages) and still others are considered for mathematical reasons. Can we have a criterion for deciding whether a language can serve as a “communication language” (e.g. for man-to-man or man-to-machine communication) ?
Our main result (The Basic Unpredictability Inequality) displays a connection between the “rate of unpredictability” and the relative number of subpatterns occurring in a language. After establishing this result we investigate (as samples) two classes of languages: regular languages and DOL languages
- 1.Hopcroft, J. and Ullman, J., 1969, Formal languages and their relation to automata, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- 2.Lindenmayer, A., 1971, Developmental systems without cellular interactions, their languages and grammars, Journal of Theoretical Biology, v. 30, 455-484.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- On (un)predictability of formal languages (Extended Abstract)
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