CFG and CNF

Theory Of Automata
Instructor: Tahir Iqbal

Tahir Iqbal, Bahria University Lahore 1

Campus
 Recap lecture 30

Deciding whether two languages are

equivalent or not, example, deciding
whether an FA accept any string or not,
method 3, examples, finiteness of a
language

2
 Context Free Grammar (CFG)
The earliest computers accepted no
instructions other then their own assembly
language. Every procedure, no matter how
complicated , had to be encoded in the set of
instructions, LOAD, STORE, ADD the
contents of two registers and so on. The major
problem was to display mathematical formulas
as follows
- 2
+ - 2
+ -
(8 0) (7 10) (11 10) 2
S=
2
or 3
 CFG continued …
1
+9
A= 2
8 5
4+ +
21 1
3+
2
So, it was necessary to develop a way of
writing such expressions in one line of
standard typewriter symbols, so that in this
way a high level language could be invented.
Before the invention of computers, no one
would ever have dreamed of writing such
complicated formula in parentheses e.g. the
right side of formula can be written as
4
((1/2)+9)/(4+(8/21)+(5/(3+(1/2))))
 CFG continued …
The high level language is converted into
assembly language codes by a program called
compiler.
The compiler that takes the user’s programs as
its inputs and prints out an equivalent program
written in assembly language.
Like spoken languages, high level languages
for computer have also, certain grammar. But
in case of computers, the grammatical rules,
don’t involve the meaning of the words.
5
 CFG continued …
It can be noted that the grammatical rules
which involve the meaning of words are called
Semantics, while those don’t involve the
meaning of the words are called Syntactics.
e.g. in English language, it can not be written “
Buildings sing ”, while in computer language
one number is as good as another.
e.g. X = B + 10, X = B + 999
Following is a remark
6
 Remark
In general, the rules of computer language
grammar, are all syntactic and not semantic.
A law of grammar is in reality a suggestion
for possible substitutions.

7
 CFG terminologies

Terminals: The symbols that can’t be

replaced by anything are called terminals.
Non-Terminals: The symbols that must be
replaced by other things are called non-
terminals.
Productions: The grammatical rules are
often called productions.

8
 CFG
CFG is a collection of the followings
1. An alphabet Σ of letters called terminals from
which the strings are formed, that will be the
words of the language.
2. A set of symbols called non-terminals, one of
which is S, stands for “start here”.
3. A finite set of productions of the form
non-terminal → finite string of terminals and /or
non-terminals.
Following is a note in this regard

9
 Note
The terminals are designated by small
letters, while the non-terminals are
designated by capital letters.
There is at least one production that has the
non-terminal S as its left side.

10
Context Free Language (CFL)
The language generated by CFG is called
Context Free Language (CFL).
Example:
= {a}
productions:
1. S →aS
2. S→
Applying production (1) six times and then
production (2) once, the word aaaaaa is
generated as
11
S  aS
 aaS
 aaaS
 aaaaS
 aaaaaS
 aaaaaaS
 aaaaaa
= aaaaaa
12
 Example continued …

It can be observed that prod (2) generates

, a can be generated applying prod. (1)
once and then prod. (2), aa can be
generated applying prod. (1) twice and
then prod. (2) and so on. This shows that
the grammar defines the language
*
expressed by a .

13
 Example
= {a}
productions:
1. S→SS
2. S→a
3. S→
This grammar also defines the language
expressed by a*.
Note: It is to be noted that is considered to
be non-terminal. It has a special status. If for
a certain non-terminal N, there may be a
production N→ . This simply means that N
can be deleted when it comes in the working
14
string.
 Example
= {a,b}
productions:
1. S→X
2. S→Y
3. X→
4. Y→aY
5. Y→bY
6. Y→a
7. Y→b 15
 Example continued …
All words of this language are of either X-type
or of Y-type. i.e. while generating a word the
first production used is S→X or S→Y. The
words of X-type give only , while the words
of Y-type are words of finite strings of a’s or
b’s or both i.e. (a+b)+. Thus the language
defined is expressed by (a+b)*.

16
 Example
= {a,b}
productions:
1. S→aS
2. S→bS
3. S→a
4. S→b
5. S→
This grammar also defines the language
expressed by (a+b)*. 17
 Example
= {a,b}
productions:
1. S→XaaX
2. X→aX
3. X→bX
4. X→
This grammar defines the language
expressed by (a+b)*aa(a+b)*.
18
 Summing Up
Context Free Grammar, Terminals, non-
terminals, productions, CFG, context Free
language, examples.

19
 Recap lecture 31
Context Free Grammar, Terminals, non-
terminals, productions, CFG, context Free
language, examples.
 Example
= {a,b}
productions:
1. S SS
2. S XS
3. S
4. S YSY
5. X aa
6. X bb
7. Y ab
8. Y ba
This grammar generates EVEN-EVEN
language.
 = {a,b}
Example
productions:
1. S aB
2. S bA
3. A a
4. A aS
5. A bAA
6. B b
7. B bS
8. B aBB
This grammar generates the language
EQUAL(The language of strings, with
number of a’s equal to number of b’s).
 Note
It is to be noted that if the same non-terminal
have more than one productions, it can be
written in single line e.g.
S aS, S bS, S can be written as
S aS|bS|
It may also be noted that the productions
S SS| always defines the language which
is closed w.r.t. concatenation i.e.the language
expressed by RE of type r*. It may also be
noted that the production S SS defines the
language expressed by r+.
 Example
Consider the following CFG = {a,b}
productions:
1. S YXY
2. Y aY|bY|
3. X bbb
It can be observed that, using prod.2, Y
generates . Y generates a. Y generates b. Y
also generates all the combinations of a and
b. thus Y generates the strings generated by
(a+b)*. It may also be observed that the
above CFG generates the language expressed
by (a+b)*bbb(a+b)*. Following are four
words generated by the given CFG
 Example continued …
S YXY S YXY
aYbbb bYbbbaY
abYbbb b bbbabY
ab bbb bbbbabbY
= abbbb bbbbabbaY
bbbbabba
S YXY
= bbbbabba
bbbaY
bbbabY S YXY
bbbabaY bYbbbaY
bbbaba b bbba
= bbbaba = bbbba
 Example
Consider the following CFG
1. S SS|XaXaX|
2. X bX|
It can be observed that, using prod.2, X
generates . X generates any number of
b’s. Thus X generates the strings
generated by b*. It may also be observed
that the above CFG generates the
language expressed by (b*ab*ab*)*.
 Example
Consider the following CFG
= {a,b}
productions:
S aSa|bSb|a|b|
The above CFG generates the language
PALINDROME. It may be noted that the
CFG
S aSa|bSb|a|b generates the language NON-
NULLPALINDROME.
 Example
Consider the following CFG
= {a,b}
productions:
S aSb|ab|
It can be observed that the CFG generates the
language {anbn: n=0,1,2,3, …}. It may also be
noted that the language {anbn: n=1,2,3, …} can
be generated by the following CFG S aSb|ab
 Task
Construct CFG that generates the language
*
L = {w {a,b} : length(w) 2 and second
letter of w from right is a}
 Example
Consider the following CFG
(1) S aXb|bXa (2) X aX|bX|
The above CFG generates the language of
strings, defined over ={a,b}, beginning and
ending in different letters.
 Task
Construct the CFG for the language of strings,
defined over ={a,b}, beginning and ending in
same letters.
 Trees
As in English language any sentence can be
expressed by parse tree, so any word generated
by the given CFG can also be expressed by the
parse tree, e.g.
consider the following CFG
S AA
A AAA|bA|Ab|a
Obviously, baab can be generated by the above
CFG. To express the word baab as a parse tree,
start with S. Replace S by the string AA, of
nonterminals, drawing the downward lines
from S to each character of this string as
follows
 Trees continued …
S

A A
Now let the left A be replaced by bA and the
right one by Ab then the tree will be
S

A A

b AA b
 Trees continued …
Replacing both A’s by a, the above tree will
be
S

A A

b AA b

a a
 Trees continued …
Thus the word baab is generated. The above
tree to generate the word baab is called
Syntax tree or Generation tree or
Derivation tree as well.
 Task
Construct CFG that generates the language
*
L = {w {a,b} : length(w) 2 and second
letter of w from right is a}
 Solution of the task
Construct CFG that generates the language L =
{w {a,b}*: length(w) 2 and second letter of
w from right is a}
It can be observed that the language L can be
expressed by (a+b)*(aa+ab). Here the
nonterminal S should be replaced the
nonterminals X or Y where X should generate
the strings corresponding to (a+b)* and Y
should generate the strings corresponding to
(aa+ab). Thus the required CFG may be
(1) S XY (2) X aX|bX| (3) Y
aa|ab
 Task
Construct the CFG for the language of strings,
defined over ={a,b}, beginning and ending in
same letters.
Solution:
It may be noted that the above language
contains the strings a and b as well. So while
constructing the required CFG the strings a and
b must be generated. Thus the required CFG
may be
S aXa|bXb|a|b
X aX|bX|
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S S+S|S*S|number
where S and number are non-terminals and the
operators behave like terminals.
The above CFG creates ambiguity as the
expression 3+4*5 has two possibilities
(3+4)*5=35 and 3+(4*5)=23 which can be
expressed by the following production trees
 Example continued …
S S

(i) S + S (ii) S S
*

3 S * S S + S 5

4 5 3 4
 Example continued …
The expressions can be calculated starting
from bottom to the top, replacing each
nonterminal by the result of calculation e.g.

S S

(i) 3 + S 3 + 20 23

4 * 5
 Example continued …
Similarly
S S

(ii) 7 35
S * 5 * 5

3 + 4
The ambiguity that has been observed in this
example can be removed with a change in the
CFG as discussed in the following example
 Example
S (S+S)|(S*S)|number
where S and number are nonterminals, while
(, *, +, ) and the numbers are terminals.
Here it can be observed that
1. S (S+S)
(S+(S*S))
(3+(4*5)) = 23
2. S (S*S)
((S+S)*S)
((3+4)*5) = 35
 Polish Notation (o-o-o)
There is another notation for arithmetic
expressions for the CFG S S+S|S*S|number.
Consider the following derivation trees

S S

(i) S + S (ii) S S
*

3 S * S S + S 5

4 5 3 4
 Polish Notation (o-o-o)
The arithmetic expressions shown by the trees (i)
and (ii) can be calculated from the following trees,
respectively
S S

+ *

(i) 3 * (ii) + 5

5 3 4
4
Here most of the S’s are eliminated.
 Polish notation continued …
The branches are connected directly with the
operators. Moreover, the operators + and * are
no longer terminals as these are to be replaced
by numbers (results).
To write the arithmetic expression, it is
required to traverse from the left side of S and
going onward around the tree. The arithmetic
expressions will be as under
(i) + 3 * 4 5 (ii) * +3 4 5
The above notation is called operator prefix
notation.
 Polish notation continued …
To evaluate the strings of characters, the first
substring (from the left) of the form
operator-operand-operand (o-o-o) is found and
is replaced by its calculation e.g.
(i) +3*4 5 = +3 20 = 23
(ii) *+3 4 5 = * 7 5 = 35
It may be noted that 4*5+3 is an infix
arithmetic expression, while an arithmetic in
(o-o-o) form is a prefix arithmetic expression.
Consider another example as follows
 Example
To calculate the arithmetic expression of the
following tree
S

*
+ 6

* 5

+ +

1 23 4
 Example continued …
it can be written as
*+*+1 2+3 4 5 6
The above arithmetic expression in (o-o-o)
form can be calculated as
*+*+1 2+3 4 5 6 = *+*3+3 4 5 6
= *+*3 7 5 6 = *+21 5 6 = *26 6 = 156.
Following is a note
 Note
The previous prefix arithmetic expression can be
converted into the following infix arithmetic
expression as
*+*+1 2+3 4 5 6
= *+*+1 2 (3+4) 5 6
= *+*(1+2) (3+4) 5 6
= *(((1+2)*(3+4)) + 5) 6
= (((1+2)*(3+4)) + 5)*6
 Task
Convert the following infix expressions
into the corresponding prefix expressions.
Calculate the values of the expressions as
well
1. 2*(3+4)*5
2. ((4+5)*6)+4
 Ambiguous CFG
The CFG is said to be ambiguous if there
exists atleast one word of it’s language that
can be generated by the different production
trees.
Example: Consider the following CFG
S aS|Sa|a
The word aaa can be generated by the
following three different trees
 Example continued …
S S S

a S a S S a

a S S a S a

a a a
Thus the above CFG is ambiguous, while the
CFG S aS|a is not ambiguous as neither the
word aaa nor any other word can be derived
from more than one production trees. The
derivation tree for aaa is as follows
 Recap lecture 33
Example of trees, Polish Notation,
examples, Ambiguous CFG, example,
 Solution of the Task
Convert the following infix expressions into the
corresponding prefix expressions. Calculate the
values of the expressions as well
1. 2*(3+4)*5
Solution: 2*+3 4 *5 which can be calculated as
*2+3 4 *5 = * *2+3 4 5= **2 7 5 = *14 5 = 70
2. ((4+5)*6)+4
Solution: (+4 5 * 6)+4= (*+4 5 6) + 4 which can
be calculated as
+*+4 5 6 4 = +* 9 6 4 = +54 4 = 58
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aS | bS | aaS |
It can be observed that the word aaa can be
derived from more than one production
trees. Thus, the above CFG is ambiguous.
This ambiguity can be removed by
removing the production S aaS
Following is another example
 Example
Consider the CFG of the language
PALINDROME
S aSa|bSb|a|b|
It may be noted that this CFG is unambiguous
as all the words of the language
PALINDROME can only be generated by a
unique production tree.
It may be noted that if the production
S aaSaa is added to the given CFG, the CFG
thus obtained will be no more unambiguous.
 Total language tree
For a given CFG, a tree with the start symbol S
as its root and whose nodes are working strings
of terminals and non-terminals. The
descendants of each node are all possible
results of applying every production to the
working string. This tree is called total
language tree. Following is an example of
total language tree
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aa|bX|aXX
X ab|b, then the total language tree for the
given CFG may be
S
aa aXX
bX
aXb
bab bb abX abb
aabb
aabX aXab
abababb
aabab aabbaabab abab
 Example continued …
It may be observed from the previous total
language tree that dropping the repeated
words, the language generated by the given
CFG is
{aa, bab, bb, aabab, aabb, abab, abb}
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S X|b, X aX
then following will be the total language tree of
the above CFG S

X b

Note: It is to be aX
noted that the
only word in aaX
…

this language aaa …aX

is b.
 Regular Grammar
All regular languages can be generated by
CFGs. Some nonregular languages can be
generated by CFGs but not all possible
languages can be generated by CFG, e.g.
the CFG S aSb|ab generates the language
{anbn:n=1,2,3, …}, which is nonregular.
Note: It is to be noted that for every FA, there
exists a CFG that generates the language
accepted by this FA. Following is an example
in this regard
Regular grammar continued …
Example:
Consider the language L expressed by
(a+b)*aa(a+b)* i.e.the language of
strings, defined over ={a,b},
containing aa. To construct the CFG
corresponding to L, consider the FA
accepting L, as follows
Regular grammar continued …
a,b
b a
A a
S- B+
b
CFG corresponding to the above FA may be
S bS|aA
A aB|bS
B aB|bB|
It may be noted that the number of terminals in
above CFG is equal to the number of states of
corresponding FA where the nonterminal S
corresponds to the initial state and each transition
defines a production.
Regular Grammar continued …
Semiword: A semiword is a string of terminals
(may be none) concatenated with exactly one
nonterminal on the right i.e. a semiword, in
general, is of the following form
(terminal)(terminal)… (terminal)(nonterminal)
word: A word is a string of terminals. is also
a word.
 Theorem
If every production in a CFG is one of
the following forms
1. Nonterminal semiword
2. Nonterminal word
then the language generated by that
CFG is regular.
 Regular grammar
Definition:
A CFG is said to be a regular grammar if it
generates the regular language i.e. a CFG is
said to be a regular grammar in which each
production is one of the two forms
Nonterminal semiword
Nonterminal word
 Examples
1. The CFG S aaS|bbS|
is a regular grammar. It may be observed that the
above CFG generates the language of strings
expressed by the RE (aa+bb)*.
2. The CFG S aA|bB, A aS|a, B bS|b is a
regular grammar. It may be observed that the
above CFG generates the language of strings
expressed by RE (aa+bb)+.
Following is a method of building TG corresponding
to the regular grammar.
 TG for Regular Grammar
For every regular grammar there exists a TG
corresponding to the regular grammar.
Following is the method to build a TG from the
given regular grammar
1. Define the states, of the required TG, equal in
number to that of nonterminals of the given
regular grammar. An additional state is also
defined to be the final state. The initial state
should correspond to the nonterminal S.
2. For every production of the given regular
grammar, there are two possibilities for the
transitions of the required TG
 Method continued …

(i) If the production is of the form

nonterminal semiword, then transition of
the required TG would start from the state
corresponding to the nonterminal on the
left side of the production and would end
in the state corresponding to the
nonterminal on the right side of the
production, labeled by string of terminals
in semiword.
 Method continued …
(ii) If the production is of the form
nonterminal word, then transition of the
TG would start from the state corresponding
to nonterminal on the left side of the
production and would end on the final state
of the TG, labeled by the word. Following is
an example in this regard
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aaS|bbS|
The TG accepting the language generated by
the above CFG is given below

aa

bb S- +

The corresponding RE may be (aa+bb)*.

 SummingUP
• Example of Ambiguous Grammar, Example
of Unambiguous Grammer
(PALINDROME), Total Language tree with
examples (Finite and infinite trees), Regular
Grammar, FA to CFG, Semi word and
Word, Theorem, Defining Regular
Grammar, Method to build TG for Regular
Grammar
 Recap Lecture 34
• Example of Ambiguous Grammar, Example
of Unambiguous Grammer
(PALINDROME), Total Language tree with
examples (Finite and infinite trees), Regular
Grammar, FA to CFG, Semi word and
Word, Theorem, Defining Regular
Grammar, Method to build TG for Regular
Grammar
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aA|bB
A aS|a
B bS|b, then the corresponding TG will be

a A a
a
S- +
b
b
b
B
The corresponding RE may be (aa+bb)+.
Following is another example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aaS|bbS|abX|baX|
X aaX|bbX|abS|baS,
then the corresponding TG will be
aa,bb aa,bb
ab,ba

+ S- X
ab,ba

The corresponding language is EVEN-EVEN.

 Null Production
Definition: The production of the form
nonterminal
is said to be null production.
Example: Consider the following CFG
S aA|bB| , A aa| , B aS
Here S and A are null productions.
Following is a note regarding the null
productions
 Note
If a CFG has a null production, then it is
possible to construct another CFG without null
production accepting the same language with
the exception of the word i.e. if the language
contains the word then the new language
cannot have the word .
Following is a method to construct a CFG
without null production for a given CFG
Null Production continued …
Method: Delete all the Null productions and
add new productions e.g.
consider the following productions of a certain
CFG X aNbNa, N , delete the
production N and using the production
X aNbNa, add the following new productions
X aNba, X abNa and X aba
Thus the new CFG will contain the following
productions X aNba|abNa|aba|aNbNa
Note: It is to be noted that X aNbNa will still
be included in the new CFG.
 Nullable Production
Definition: A production is called nullable
production if it is of the form
N
or
there is a derivation that starts at N and leads
to i.e.
N1 N2, N2 N3, N3 N4, …, Nn , where N,
N1, N2, …, Nn are non terminals.
Following is an example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S AA|bB, A aa|B, B aS |
Here S AA and A B are nullable productions,
while B is null a production.
Following is an example describing the method to
convert the given CFG containing null productions
and nullable productions into the one without null
productions
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S XaY|YY|aX|ZYX
X Za|bZ|ZZ|Yb
Y Ya|XY|
Z aX|YYY
It is to be noted that in the given CFG, the
productions S YY, X ZZ, Z YYY are
Nullable productions, while Y is Null
production.
 Example continued …
Here the method of removing null productions,
as discussed earlier, will be used along with
replacing nonterminals corresponding to
nullable productions like nonterminals for null
productions are replaced.
Thus the required CFG will be
S XaY|Xa|aY|a|YY|Y|aX|ZYX|YX|ZX|ZY
X Za|a|bZ|b|ZZ|Z|Yb
Y Ya|a|XY|X|Y
Z aX|a|YYY|YY|Y,
Following is another example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S XY, X Zb, Y bW
Z AB, W Z, A aA|bA|
B Ba|Bb| .
Here A and B are null productions,
while Z AB, W Z are nullable productions.
The new CFG after, applying the method, will
be
 Example continued …
S XY
X Zb|b
Y bW|b
Z AB|A|B
W Z
A aA|a|bA|b
B Ba|a|Bb|b
 Note
While adding new productions all
Nullable productions should be handled
with care. All Nullable productions will
be used to add new productions, but only
the Null production will be deleted.
 Unit production
Unit production: The productions of the
form
nonterminal one nonterminal,
is called the unit production.
Following is an example showing how to
eliminate the unit productions from a
given CFG.
Unit production continued …
Example: Consider the following CFG
S A|bb,
A B|b,
B S|a
Separate the unit productions from the nonunit
productions as shown below
unit prods. nonunit prods.
S A S bb
A B A b
B S B a
 Example continued …
S A gives S b (using A b)
S A B gives S a (using B a)
A B gives A a (using B a)
A B S gives A bb (using S bb)
B S gives B bb (using S bb)
B S A gives B b (using A b)
Thus the new CFG will be
S a|b|bb, A a|b|bb, B a|b|bb.
Which generates the finite language {a,b,bb}.
 Chomsky Normal Form
Chomsky Normal Form (CNF): If a CFG has
only productions of the form
nonterminal string of two nonterminals
or
nonterminal one terminal
then the CFG is said to be in Chomsky Normal
Form (CNF).
 Summing Up
• Examples of building TG’s corresponding
to the Regular Grammar, Null productions
with examples, Nullable productions with
examples, Unit production with example,
Chomsky Normal Form (Definition)
 Recap Lecture 34
• Example of Ambiguous Grammar, Example
of Unambiguous Grammer
(PALINDROME), Total Language tree with
examples (Finite and infinite trees), Regular
Grammar, FA to CFG, Semi word and
Word, Theorem, Defining Regular
Grammar, Method to build TG for Regular
Grammar
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aA|bB
A aS|a
B bS|b, then the corresponding TG will be

a A a
a
S- +
b
b
b
B
The corresponding RE may be (aa+bb)+.
Following is another example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aaS|bbS|abX|baX|
X aaX|bbX|abS|baS,
then the corresponding TG will be
aa,bb aa,bb
ab,ba

+ S- X
ab,ba

The corresponding language is EVEN-EVEN.

 Null Production
Definition: The production of the form
nonterminal
is said to be null production.
Example: Consider the following CFG
S aA|bB| , A aa| , B aS
Here S and A are null productions.
Following is a note regarding the null
productions
 Note
If a CFG has a null production, then it is
possible to construct another CFG without null
production accepting the same language with
the exception of the word i.e. if the language
contains the word then the new language
cannot have the word .
Following is a method to construct a CFG
without null production for a given CFG
Null Production continued …
Method: Delete all the Null productions and
add new productions e.g.
consider the following productions of a certain
CFG X aNbNa, N , delete the
production N and using the production
X aNbNa, add the following new productions
X aNba, X abNa and X aba
Thus the new CFG will contain the following
productions X aNba|abNa|aba|aNbNa
Note: It is to be noted that X aNbNa will still
be included in the new CFG.
 Nullable Production
Definition: A production is called nullable
production if it is of the form
N
or
there is a derivation that starts at N and leads
to i.e.
N1 N2, N2 N3, N3 N4, …, Nn , where N,
N1, N2, …, Nn are non terminals.
Following is an example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S AA|bB, A aa|B, B aS |
Here S AA and A B are nullable productions,
while B is null a production.
Following is an example describing the method to
convert the given CFG containing null productions
and nullable productions into the one without null
productions
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S XaY|YY|aX|ZYX
X Za|bZ|ZZ|Yb
Y Ya|XY|
Z aX|YYY
It is to be noted that in the given CFG, the
productions S YY, X ZZ, Z YYY are
Nullable productions, while Y is Null
production.
 Example continued …
Here the method of removing null productions,
as discussed earlier, will be used along with
replacing nonterminals corresponding to
nullable productions like nonterminals for null
productions are replaced.
Thus the required CFG will be
S XaY|Xa|aY|a|YY|Y|aX|ZYX|YX|ZX|ZY
X Za|a|bZ|b|ZZ|Z|Yb
Y Ya|a|XY|X|Y
Z aX|a|YYY|YY|Y,
Following is another example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S XY, X Zb, Y bW
Z AB, W Z, A aA|bA|
B Ba|Bb| .
Here A and B are null productions,
while Z AB, W Z are nullable productions.
The new CFG after, applying the method, will
be
 Example continued …
S XY
X Zb|b
Y bW|b
Z AB|A|B
W Z
A aA|a|bA|b
B Ba|a|Bb|b
 Note
While adding new productions all
Nullable productions should be handled
with care. All Nullable productions will
be used to add new productions, but only
the Null production will be deleted.
 Unit production
Unit production: The productions of the
form
nonterminal one nonterminal,
is called the unit production.
Following is an example showing how to
eliminate the unit productions from a
given CFG.
Unit production continued …
Example: Consider the following CFG
S A|bb,
A B|b,
B S|a
Separate the unit productions from the nonunit
productions as shown below
unit prods. nonunit prods.
S A S bb
A B A b
B S B a
 Example continued …
S A gives S b (using A b)
S A B gives S a (using B a)
A B gives A a (using B a)
A B S gives A bb (using S bb)
B S gives B bb (using S bb)
B S A gives B b (using A b)
Thus the new CFG will be
S a|b|bb, A a|b|bb, B a|b|bb.
Which generates the finite language {a,b,bb}.
 Chomsky Normal Form
Chomsky Normal Form (CNF): If a CFG has
only productions of the form
nonterminal string of two nonterminals
or
nonterminal one terminal
then the CFG is said to be in Chomsky Normal
Form (CNF).
 Summing Up
• Examples of building TG’s corresponding
to the Regular Grammar, Null productions
with examples, Nullable productions with
examples, Unit production with example,
Chomsky Normal Form (Definition)
 Recap lecture 35
Regular grammar, null productions and
examples, nullable productions and
examples, unit productions and example,
Chomsky Normal Form (Definition)
 Chomsky Normal Form
Chomsky Normal Form (CNF): If a CFG has
only productions of the form
nonterminal string of two nonterminals
or
nonterminal one terminal
then the CFG is said to be in Chomsky Normal
Form (CNF).
 Note
It is to be noted that any CFG can be
converted to be in CNF, if the null
productions and unit productions are
removed. Also if a CFG contains nullable
productions as well, then the corresponding
new production are also to be added. Which
leads the following theorem
 Theorem
All NONNULL words of the CFL can be
generated by the corresponding CFG
which is in CNF i.e. the grammar in CNF
will generate the same language except
the null string.
Following is an example showing that a
CFG in CNF generates all nonnull words
of corresponding CFL.
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S aSa|bSb|a|b|aa|bb
To convert the above CFG to be in CNF,
introduce the new productions as
A a, B b, then the new CFG will be
S ASA|BSB|AA|BB|a|b
A a
B b
 Example continued …
Introduce nonterminals R1 and R2 so that
S AR1|BR2|AA|BB|a|b
R1 SA
R2 SB
A a
B b
which is in CNF.
It may be observed that the above CFG which
is in CNF generates the
NONNULLPALINDROME, which does not
contain the null string.
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S ABAB
A a|
B b|
Here S ABAB is nullable production and A
,B are null productions. Removing the
null productions
A and B , and introducing the new
productions as
S BAB|AAB|ABB|ABA|AA|AB|BA|BB|A|B
 Example continued …
Now S A|B are unit productions to be
eliminated as shown below
S A gives S a (using A a)
S B gives S b (using B b)
Thus the new resultant CFG takes the form
S BAB|AAB|ABB|ABA|AA|AB|BA|BB|a|b
A a
B b
Introduce the nonterminal C where C AB, so
that
 Example continued …
S BAB|AAB|ABB|ABA|AA|AB|BA|BB|a|b

A a
B b
C AB
S CC|BC|AC|CB|CA|AA|C|BA|BB|a|b
is the CFG in CNF.
 Task
Convert the following CFG to be in CNF
S ABAB
A a|
B b|
 Example
To construct an FA that accepts the grammar
S abA
A baB
B aA|bb
The language can be identified by the three
words generated as follows
(i) S abA
abbaB (using A baB)
abba bb (using B bb)
(ii) S abA
abbaB (using A baB)
abbaaA (using B aA)
abbaabaB (using A baB)
abbaababb (using B bb)
(iii) S abA
abbaB (using A baB)
abbaaA (using B aA)
abbaabaB (using A baB)
abbaabaaA (using B aA)
abbaabaabaB (using A baB)
abbaabaababb (using B bb)
 Example continued …
which shows that corresponding language
has RE abba(aba)*bb. Thus the FA
accepting the given CFG may be

a
S- a b A b a B b b +
a
b b a
a a,b

a,b
 Left most derivation
Definition: The derivation of a word w,
generated by a CFG, such that at each step, a
production is applied to the left most
nonterminal in the working string, is said to be
left most derivation.
It is to be noted that the nonterminal that
occurs first from the left in the working string,
is said to be left most nonterminal. Following
is an example
 Example
Consider the following CFG
S XY
X XX|a
Y YY|b
then following are the two left most
derivations of aaabb
 Example continued …
S XY S XY
XXY XXY
aXY XXXY
aXXY aXXY
aaXY aaXY
aaaY aaaY
aaaYY aaaYY
aaabY aaabY
= aaabb = aaabb
 Theorem
Any word that can be generated by a certain CFG
has also a left most derivation.
It is to be noted that the above theorem can be
stated for right most derivation as well.
Example: Consider the following CFG
S YX
X XX|b
Y YY|a
Following are the left most and right most
derivations of abbbb
 Example continued …
S YX S YX
aX YXX
aXX YXb
abX YXXb
abXX YXbb
abbX YXXbb
abbXX YXbbb
abbbX Ybbbb
= abbbb = abbbb
 A new format for FAs
A class of machines (FAs) has been discussed
accepting the regular language i.e.
corresponding to a regular language there is a
machine in this class, accepting that language
and corresponding to a machine of this class
there is a regular language accepted by this
machine. It has also been discussed that there
is a CFG corresponding to regular language
and CFGs also define some nonregular
languages, as well
A new format for FAs contd. …
There is a question whether there is a class of
machines accepting the CFLs? The answer is
yes. The new machines which are to be defined
are more powerful and can be constructed with
the help of FAs with new format.
To define the new format of an FA, the
following are to be defined
 Summing Up
• Chomsky Normal Form, Theorem regarding
CNF, examples of converting CFG to be in
CNF, Example of an FA corresponding to
Regular CFG, Left most and Right most