Formal language

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

A Formal Syntax of Natural Languages and the Deductive Grammar

Abstract: This paper presents a formal syntax framework of natural languages for computational linguistics. The abstract syntax of natural languages, particularly English, and their formal manipulations are described. On the basis of the abstract syntax, a universal language processing model and the deductive grammar of English are developed toward the formalization of Chomsky's universal grammar in linguistics. Comparative analyses of natural and programming languages, as well as the linguistic perception on software engineering, are discussed. A wide range of applications of the deductive grammar of English have been explored in language acquisition, comprehension, generation, and processing in cognitive informatics, computational intelligence, and cognitive computing.

Symbolic evaluation graphs and term rewriting: a general methodology for analyzing logic programs

Abstract: There exist many powerful techniques to analyze termination and complexity of term rewrite systems (TRSs). Our goal is to use these techniques for the analysis of other programming languages as well. For instance, approaches to prove termination of definite logic programs by a transformation to TRSs have been studied for decades. However, a challenge is to handle languages with more complex evaluation strategies (such as Prolog, where predicates like the cut influence the control flow). In this paper, we present a general methodology for the analysis of such programs. Here, the logic program is first transformed into a symbolic evaluation graph which represents all possible evaluations in a finite way. Afterwards, different analyses can be performed on these graphs. In particular, one can generate TRSs from such graphs and apply existing tools for termination or complexity analysis of TRSs to infer information on the termination or complexity of the original logic program.

Generating formal cryptographic protocol specifications

Abstract: This paper describes a tool which translates a cryptographic protocol specified in the semi-formal standard notation i. A/spl rarr/B:M into the formal language CKT5. We examine the standard notation syntax, and describe how it is exploited by the tool to infer protocol conditions which must hold for every principal, thereby obtaining a complete, formal specification of the protocol. The translation criteria described herein are applicable to other target languages than CKT5. >

Controlled natural language can replace first-order logic

Abstract: Many domain specialists are not familiar or comfortable with formal notations and formal tools like theorem provers or model generators. To address this problem, we developed Attempto Controlled English (ACE), a subset of English that can be unambiguously translated into first-order logic and thus can conveniently replace first-order logic as a formal notation. We describe how ACE has been used as a front-end to EP Tableaux, a model generation method complete for unsatisfiability and for finite satisfiability. We specified in ACE, a database example that was previously expressed in the EP Tableaux language PRQ, automatically translated the ACE specification into PRQ, and with the help of EP Tableaux reproduced the previously found results.