Related papers: Syntactic Complexity of Prefix-, Suffix-, Bifix-, …
A $1$-prefix normal word is a binary word with the property that no factor has more $1$s than the prefix of the same length; a $0$-prefix normal word is defined analogously. These words arise in the context of indexed binary jumbled pattern…
Let A be a finite alphabet and let L contained in (A*)^n be an n-variable language over A. We say that L is regular if it is the language accepted by a synchronous n-tape finite state automaton, it is quasi-regular if it is accepted by an…
The atoms of a regular language are non-empty intersections of complemented and uncomplemented quotients of the language. Tight upper bounds on the number of atoms of a language and on the quotient complexities of atoms are known. We…
Received wisdom in linguistic typology holds that if the structure of a language becomes more complex in one dimension, it will simplify in another, building on the assumption that all languages are equally complex (Joseph and Newmeyer,…
The \emph{state complexity} of a regular language $L_m$ is the number $m$ of states in a minimal deterministic finite automaton (DFA) accepting $L_m$. The state complexity of a regularity-preserving binary operation on regular languages is…
Motivated by the question of which completely regular semigroups have context-free word problem, we show that for certain classes of languages $\mathfrak{C}$(including context-free), every completely regular semigroup that is a union of…
We consider several novel aspects of unique factorization in formal languages. We reprove the familiar fact that the set uf(L) of words having unique factorization into elements of L is regular if L is regular, and from this deduce an…
We study the complexity of basic regular operations on languages represented by incomplete deterministic or nondeterministic automata, in which all states are final. Such languages are known to be prefix-closed. We get tight bounds on both…
We study structure of pure morphic and morphic sequences and prove the following result: the subword complexity of arbitrary morphic sequence is either $\Theta(n^{1+1/k})$ for some $k\in\mathbb N$, or is $O(n \log n)$.
We investigate the shuffle operation on regular languages represented by complete deterministic finite automata. We prove that $f(m,n)=2^{mn-1} + 2^{(m-1)(n-1)}(2^{m-1}-1)(2^{n-1}-1)$ is an upper bound on the state complexity of the shuffle…
In this paper we consider the state complexity of an operation on formal languages, root(L). This naturally entails the discussion of the monoid of transformations of a finite set. We obtain good upper and lower bounds on the state…
In a simple pattern matching problem one has a pattern $w$ and a text $t$, which are words over a finite alphabet $\Sigma$. One may ask whether $w$ occurs in $t$, and if so, where? More generally, we may have a set $P$ of patterns and a set…
We present a new characteristic of a regular ideal language called reset complexity. We find some bounds on the reset complexity in terms of the state complexity of a given language. We also compare the reset complexity and the state…
Given a finite alphabet $\Sigma$ and a right-infinite word $\bf w$ over $\Sigma$, we define the Lie complexity function $L_{\bf w}:\mathbb{N}\to \mathbb{N}$, whose value at $n$ is the number of conjugacy classes (under cyclic shift) of…
We study regular expressions that use variables, or parameters, which are interpreted as alphabet letters. We consider two classes of languages denoted by such expressions: under the possibility semantics, a word belongs to the language if…
Smooth words over an alphabet of non-negative integers $\{a,b\}$ are infinite words that are infinitely derivable, the most famous example being the Oldenburger-Kolakoski word over $\{1,2\}$. The main way to study their language is to…
We investigate structural complexity measures on digraphs, in particular the cycle rank. This concept is intimately related to a classical topic in formal language theory, namely the star height of regular languages. We explore this…
It has been claimed that within a language, morphologically irregular words are more likely to be phonotactically simple and morphologically regular words are more likely to be phonotactically complex. This inverse correlation has been…
We consider a new family of factorial languages whose subword complexity grows as $\Theta(n^{\alpha})$, where $\alpha$ is the root of some transcendent equation. Analytical methods and in particular, a corollary of the Wiener-Pitt theorem,…
The number of frequencies of factors of length $n+1$ in a recurrent aperiodic infinite word does not exceed $3\Delta \C(n)$, where $\Delta \C (n)$ is the first difference of factor complexity, as shown by Boshernitzan. Pelantov\'a together…