Grammars, constituency and order

1. Grammars, constituency and order • A grammar describes the legal strings of a language in terms of constituency and order. • For example, a grammar for a fragment of English might say that a legal sentence consists of • a noun phrase (subject), • followed by a verb phrase (predicate). • This rule is commonly written as • S → NP VP

2. Constituents of constituents • The constituents of constituents may be described by other rules. • They would refine, for example, the initial decomposition • [the dog] [chased a cat] • into a complete decomposition • [[the] [dog]] [[chased] [[a] [cat]]] • according to the following rules:

3. Grammar rules for a fragment of English • S → NP VP • NP → Det N • VP → V NP • N → dog • N → cat • Det → the • Det → a • V → chased

4. Parse trees (derivation trees) • Hierarchical decomposition of sentences are more commonly expressed by special trees, known as parse trees or derivation trees. • For our sample sentence, we would have the parse tree below

5. Parse tree for an English sentence S / \ NP VP / \ / \ Det N V NP | | | / \ the dog chased Det N | | a cat

6. Sentences generated by grammars • The grammar with the rules above would also allow, or generate, sentences like • a dog chased a cat • the dog chased a dog • a cat chased the dog since parse trees could be constructed for these sentences.

7. Context-free grammars (CFGs) • In the example above, the alphabet S consisted of the set of English words. • A grammar also needs to specify symbols aside from S, and rules, so more precisely …

8. CFGs defined • … a context-free grammar (CFG) consists of • a set T of terminal symbols (analogous to S) • a set V of other variables (or nonterminals) • a start symbol S, which is a member of V • a collection P of rules (or productions), each with • a left-hand side (LHS) from V, and • a right-hand side (RHS) from (V U T)*

9. Context freedom • The notion of context freedom means that any category may be expanded in accordance with the rules no matter where it appears. • So for example, the noun phrases that are legal subjects are the same as those that are legal objects (that is, are NPs in the V → NP rule).

10. Rules for a CFG for L(0(1+2)*) • S → 0X • X → l • X → YX • Y → 1 • Y → 2

11. CFGs for palindromes • A CFG for even-length palindromes over {0,1}: • S → l | 0S0 | 1S1 • A CFG for odd-length palindromes over {0,1}: • S → 0 | 1 | 0S0 | 1S1 • Here we use the common convention allowing several rules with the same LHS to be combined into one, with vertical bars separating the RHSs.

12. Rules for other 1-variable CFGs • for all palindromes over {0,1}: • S → l | 0 | 1 | 0S0 | 1S1 • for nonempty sequences of balanced parentheses: • S → ( ) | ( S ) | SS • for {0n1n | n ≥ 0} • S → l | 0S1 • for { x e {0,1} | x has as many 0's as 1's} • S → l | 0S1 | 1S0 | SS

13. Parse trees and grammars • A parse tree is legal for a CFG iff it satisfies each correspondence: • root ↔ start symbol • parent node ↔ LHS of a grammar rule • child node ↔ symbol from the RHS of a rule whose LHS is the parent node • leaf ↔ terminal symbol (or l) • Also, the ordering of children of a node must match the ordering of the RHS symbols in the corresponding rule.

14. Partial parse (derivation) trees • It's convenient to allow representation of the progress of a parse by allowing leaves to be labeled by a nonterminal symbol (and perhaps ignoring the constraint on roots) • In any case, the left to right sequence of leaf labels (ignoring those labeled by l) is called the yield of the parse tree • so the yield is a string of terminals

15. Notational conventions • Lower case letters are interpreted as for DFAs • those near the beginning of the alphabet represent terminals; those near the end of the alphabet represent strings • Capital letters represent nonterminals (variables) • Greek letters represent strings of variables and terminals • So a generic rule looks like A → g

16. Derivations and rewrite rules • CFG rules are also rewrite rules. • Here the rule S → NP VP would allow rewriting of S as NP VP • We may define generation in terms of derivation from S by repeated rewriting • e.g., we get the legal derivation S => NP VP => Det N VP => the N VP => the dog VP => the dog V NP => the dog chased NP => the dog chased Det N => the dog chased a N => the dog chased a cat

17. Leftmost and rightmost derivations • For every parse tree there are unique leftmost and rightmost derivations • The rightmost derivation corresponding to the parse tree above is • S => NP VP => NP V NP => NP V Det N => NP V Det cat => NP V a cat => NP chased a cat => Det N chased a cat => Det dog chased a cat => the dog chased a cat

18. Leftmost and rightmost derivations • All but the simplest parse trees will have other associated derivations besides the leftmost and rightmost. • For every derivation there is a unique associated parse tree. • Def) Using the symbol =>* for the transitive closure of the => relation, then • a sentential form for G is a string a from V U T such that S =>* a

19. Context-free languages (CFLs) • Fact: A CFG G with start symbol S licenses a parse tree for w iff S =>* w • Def) L(G) (the language generated by G) is {x | G generates x}, or equivalently {x | G’s start symbol derives x}, or {x ε T* | x is a sentential form for G}, • A language generated by a context-free grammar is called a context-free language

20. Ambiguous grammars • Here’s a 1-variable CFG for a subset of algebraic expressions: • E → x | y | E+E | E*E | (E) • Note that this grammar allows multiple parse trees for some strings, like x+y*y. • A grammar with this property is said to be ambiguous.

21. An unambiguous grammar for algebraic expressions • Rules for an unambiguous grammar for the above language are given below: • E → E + T | T • T → T * F | F • F → x | y | ( E )

22. Inherent ambiguity • Ambiguity is common in natural languages. • But we don't want it in programming languages! • Often ambiguity can be removed. • i.e., a grammar can be replaced by an unambiguous one, as seen above • But there are languages for which all grammars are ambiguous. • These languages are said to be inherently ambiguous.

23. Regular languages and CFLs • We’ve already seen examples of CFLs that aren’t regular languages • But it's fairly easy to show that all regular languages are context-free. • The languages {a}, {l}, and f have grammars with respective productions • S → a • S → l • [no productions]

24. All regular languages are CFLs • Suppose L1 and L2 have respective start symbols S1 and S2. • Then we may get grammars with start symbol S for their union, for their concatenation, and for L1* by adding the respective productions • S → S1 | S2 • S → S1S2 • S → l | S1S2 • So all regular languages are CFLs

25. Grammars for regular languages • Any regular language can be generated by a special type of CFG. • Def) A right-linear grammar is a CFG where the RHS of each rule has the form xB or x, • for x ε T* and B ε V • Fact: Right-linear grammars generate all and only regular languages

26. Finding a grammar for a regular language • For a DFA M, consider the grammar G with • T = S, V = Q and S = q0 • a rule qi → ajqk for each aj move from qi to qk • a rule qi → aj for each aj move from qi to qk where qk ε F • An easy induction shows that d*(q,x) = p iff q =>* xp • and that d*(q,x) = p and p ε F iff q =>* x • So L(G) = L(M)

27. DFAs for right-linear grammars • Conversely, let G be a right-linear grammar • If all strings x on RHSs have length 1, then the construction above can be reversed • and the proof above still holds • If not, then the construction can be modified by adding extra states as in Linz, pp. 91-2 • In either case a DFA can be obtained for L(G)

28. Regular grammars • Left-linear grammars may be defined by analogy with right-linear grammars • every rule must have a RHS of the form Bx or x • Fact: Left-linear grammars generate all and only regular languages • A CFG is a regular grammar iff it is right-linear or left-linear • so a language has a regular grammar iff it is regular

29. Backus-Naur form (BNF) • Grammars for programming languages generally use a variant of our CFG notation called BNF. • In BNF the symbol ::= is used instead of the rightward pointing arrow. • In BNF, terminal symbols may be given in bold face, or nonterminals may be delimited by angle brackets, e.g. • <identifier> ::= <letter> <digits>

30. Common BNF conventions • The vertical bar convention • [ ] brackets • for optionality (0 or 1 times) • { } braces • for indefinite repetition (0 or more times) • ( ) parentheses • for removing ambiguity, e.g., (a|b)c vs. a | bc

31. A sample grammar in BNF • <conditional> ::= • if <test> then <block> [ else <block> ] endif • <block> ::= begin [<statements>] end • <statements> ::= { <statement> } • <test> ::= <var> <op> <var> • <statement> ::= <var> = <var> • <var> ::= x | y • <op> ::= = | /=