English

Comparing consecutive letter counts in multiple context-free languages

Formal Languages and Automata Theory 2021-03-17 v3 Combinatorics

Abstract

Context-free grammars are not able to model cross-serial dependencies in natural languages. To overcome this issue, Seki et al. introduced a generalization called mm-multiple context-free grammars (mm-MCFGs), which deal with mm-tuples of strings. We show that mm-MCFGs are capable of comparing the number of consecutive occurrences of at most 2m2m different letters. In particular, the language {a1n1a2n2akn2m+1n1n2n2m+10}\{a_1^{n_1} a_2^{n_2} \dots a_{k}^{n_{2m+1}} \mid n_1 \geq n_2 \geq \dots \geq n_{2m+1} \geq 0\} is (m+1)(m+1)-multiple context-free, but not mm-multiple context-free.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.08236,
  title  = {Comparing consecutive letter counts in multiple context-free languages},
  author = {Florian Lehner and Christian Lindorfer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.08236},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:46:55.885Z