Formal language

About: Formal language is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5763 publications have been published within this topic receiving 154114 citations.

Dynamic Syntax: The Flow of Language Understanding

Abstract: 1.Towards a Syntactic Model of Interpretation. Natural Language as a Formal Language?. Underspecification in Language Processing. The Representational Theory of Mind. Pronominal Anaphora: Semantic Problems. The Problem of Multiple Ambiguity. The Problem of Uniqueness. The Problem of Indirect Reference. Quantification. Syntactic Processes of Anaphora. The Anaphora Solution ---- Towards a Representational Account. 2. The General Framework. A Preliminary Sketch. The Data Structures of the Parsing Model. Atomic Formulae. Tree Modalities. Basic Tree Structures. Partial Tree Structures. Requirements. Descriptions of Tree Structures. 3. The Dynamics of Tree Building. The Parsing Process -- A Sketch. A Basic Example. A Left--Dislocation Example. Verb--final Languages and the Grammar--parser Problem. The Parsing Process Defined. Computational Rules. Lexical Transitions. Pragmatic Actions and Lexical Constraints. Summary. 4. Linked Tree Structures. Relative Clauses ---- Preliminaries. The LINK Relation. The Data Reviewed. The Analysis ---- A Sketch for English. Defining Linked Tree Structures. Relativisers Annotating Unfixed Nodes. Relatives: Towards a Dynamic Typology. Relativisers Projecting a Requirement. Variation in Locality. Topic Structures and Relatives. Variation in Order ---- Head--Final Relatives. Head--internal Relatives. The Potential for Lexical Variation. Genitive Constructions as LINK Structures. Summary. 5. Wh Questions: A General Perspective. Introduction. The Semantic Diversity of wh Questions. Scopal Properties of wh Expressions. Wh--initial vs wh--in--situ Structures. Wh--in--situ Structures. Wh--in--situ from a Dynamic Perspective. Expletive wh Structures. Partial Movement. Partial Movement as a Reflex of a Requirement. Wh Expressions and Scope Effects. 6. Crossover Phenomena. Crossover ---- The Problem. Crossover ---- The Dynamic Account. Crossover in Relatives. Crossover Phenomena in Questions. Summary. 7. Quantification Preliminaries. Introduction. Scope Effects and Indefinites. Quantification. Quantified NPs. Scope. Term Reconstructions. Applications ---- E--type Anaphora. 8. Reflections on Language Design. The Overall Perspective. Underspecification and the Formal Language Metaphor. English is not a Formal Language. Wellformedness and Availability of Interpretations. Universals and Language Variation. On Knowledge of Language. 9. Appendix: The Formal Framework. Introduction. Declarative Structure. Feature Decorated Tree Construction. Goal--directedness. The Structure of Goal--directed Pointed Partial Tree Models. Tree Descriptions. Procedural Structure. Actions over Goal--directed Partial Tree Models. Natural Languages. Axioms. Finite Binary trees. Partial Trees. Requirements. Actions. Partial Order. Logical Forms. Computational Rules. Update Actions. Pragmatic Actions. General Index. Symbol Index.

The Theory of Timed Automata

Abstract: We propose timed automata to model the behavior of real-time systems over time. Our definition provides a simple, and yet powerful, way to annotate state-transition graphs with timing constraints using finitely many real-valued clocks. A timed automaton accepts timed words — strings in which a real-valued time of occurrence is associated with each symbol. We study timed automata from the perspective of formal language theory: we consider closure properties, decision problems, and subclasses. We discuss the application of this theory to automatic verification of real-time requirements of finite-state systems.