Non-Context-Free language
There arises a question, whether all
languages are CFL ? The answer is no.
Non CFL: Languages which are not
Context-Free, are called Non-CFL.
e.g., anbnan
To prove the claim that all languages are
not Context-Free, the study of machines of
word production from the grammar is
needed
1
Turing machine
The mathematical models (FAs, TGs, PDAs)
that have been discussed so far can decide
whether a string is accepted or not by them i.e.
these models are language identifiers.
However, there are still some languages which
can’t be accepted by them e.g. there does not
exist any FA or TG or PDA accepting any non-
CFLs.
Alan Mathison Turing developed the machines
called Turing machines, which accept some
non-CFLs as well, in addition to CFLs.
2
Turing machine
Definition: A Turing machine (TM) consists of
the following
1. An alphabet of input letters.
2. An input TAPE partitioned into cells, having
infinite many locations in one direction. The
input string is placed on the TAPE starting its
first letter on the cell i, the rest of the TAPE
is initially filled with blanks (∆’s).
3
Turing machine continued …
Input TAPE
i ii iii iv
a b a ∆ ...
TAPE Head
3. A tape Head can read the contents of cell on
the TAPE in one step. It can replace the
character at any cell and can reposition itself
to the next cell to the right or to the left of
that it has just read.
4
Turing machine continued …
Initially the TAPE Head is at the cell i. The
TAPE Head can’t move to the left of cell i.
the location of the TAPE Head is denoted by
.
4. An alphabet of characters that can be
printed on the TAPE by the TAPE Head.
may include the letters of . Even the TAPE
Head can print blank ∆, which means to erase
some character from the TAPE.
5
Turing machine continued …
5. Finite set of states containing exactly one
START state and some (may be none) HALT
states that cause execution to terminate when
the HALT states are entered.
6. A program which is the set of rules, which
show that which state is to be entered when a
letter is read form the TAPE and what
character is to be printed. This program is
shown by the states connected by directed
edges labeled by triplet
6
(letter, letter, direction)
Turing machine continued …
It may be noted that the first letter is the
character the TAPE Head reads from the
cell to which it is pointing. The second
letter is what the TAPE Head prints the cell
before it leaves. The direction tells the
TAPE Head whether to move one cell to the
right, R, or one cell to the left, L.
Following is a note
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Note
It may be noted that there may not be any
outgoing edge at certain state for certain letter
to be read from the TAPE, which creates
nondeterminism in Turing machines. It may
also be noted that at certain state, there can’t
be more than one out going edges for certain
letter to be read from the TAPE. The machine
crashes if there is not path for a letter to be
read from the TAPE and the corresponding
string is supposed to be rejected.
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Note continued …
To terminate execution of certain input
string successfully, a HALT state must be
entered and the corresponding string is
supposed to be accepted by the TM. The
machine also crashes when the TAPE Head
is instructed to move one cell to the left of
cell i.
Following is an example of TM
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Example
Consider the following Turing machine
(a,a,R)
(b,b,R)
(a,a,R)
(b,b,R) (∆, ∆,R)
1 START 2 3 4 HALT
(b,b,R)
Let the input string aba be run over this TM
10
Example continued …
Input TAPE
i ii iii iv
a b a ∆ ...
TAPE Head
Starting from the START state, reading a form
the TAPE and according to the TM
program, a will be printed i.e. a will be
replaced by a and the TAPE Head will be
moved one cell to the right. 11
Which can be seen as
Input TAPE
i ii iii iv
a b a ∆ ...
TAPE Head
This process can be expressed as
1 2
aba aba 12
At state 2 reading b, state 3 is entered and
the letter b is replaced by b, i.e.
1 2 3
aba aba aba
At state 3 reading a, will keep the state of
the TM unchanged. Lastly, the blank ∆ is
read and ∆ is replaced by ∆ and the HALT
state is entered. Which can be expressed as
13
1 2 3 3
HALT
aba aba aba aba∆
Which shows that the string aba is accepted
by this machine. It can be observed, from
the program of the TM, that the machine
accepts the language expressed by
(a+b)b(a+b)*.
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Theorem: Every regular language is
accepted by some TM.
Example: Consider the EVEN-EVEN
language. Following is a TM accepting the
EVEN-EVEN language.
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(b,b,R)
(∆, ∆,R) 2
5 HALT 1 START (b,b,R)
(a,a,R) (a,a,R) (a,a,R)
(a,a,R)
(b,b,R)
3 4
(b,b,R)
It may be noted that the above diagram is similar to
that of FA corresponding to EVEN-EVEN language.
Following is another example 16
