Automata and Language Theory

First Semester SY 2008-2009

Pabroa, Benjie
 Consider the game “snake and lather”
▪ Look at all possible position of the piece on
the board and call them states.
▪ The game changes from one state to another
in a fashion determined by the input of a
certain number
▪ For each possible number, there is one and
only one resulting state
▪ We should allow for the possibility that after a
number is entered, the game is still in the
same state as it was before.
▪ After a certain number of rolls, the board
arrives at a state that means a victory for one
of the players and the game is over. We call
this a final state.
▪ There might be many possible final states
that result in victory for this player.
▪ In computer theory, final state are also
called halting states, terminal states, or
accepting states.
▪ Beginning with the initial state (which we
presume to be unique), some input
sequences of numbers lead to victory for the
a player and some do not.
 How can we differentiate “snake and
lather” with computer?
▪ You have a simple computer (input device,
processing unit, memory, output device) and
you wish to calculate the sum of 3 plus 4.
▪ You write a program, which is a sequence of
instructions that are fed into the machine one at
a time. Each instruction is executed as soon as it
is read, and then the next instruction is read. If
all goes well, the machine outputs the number 7
and terminates execution.
▪ We can consider this process to be similar to the
game
▪ The computer is also deterministic
▪ On reading one particular input instruction, the
machine converts itself from the state it was in
to some particular other state where the
resultant state is determined by the prior state
and the input instruction.
▪ Some sequence of input instructions may lead to
success and some may not. Success is entirely
determined by the sequence of inputs.
▪ In calculating 4+3, what is important is the
printing of 7, the rest in the memory does not
matter.
▪ Connecting with language….
▪ In the game, we can consider the set of all
possible dice rolls (or set of all computer
instructions) to be the letter of an alphabet.
▪ We can then define a certain language as the set
of strings of those letters that lead to success /
final state.
▪ We can then define the language to be the set of
all words over this alphabet that lead to success.
▪ This is the language whose words are all
programs that print a 7.
▪ The most general model (of the game and
computer program) is called a Finite
Automaton (FA)
▪ “finite” because the number of possible states
and number of letters in the alphabet are both
finite
▪ “automaton” because the change of states is
totally governed by the input.
The determination of what state is next is
automatic (involuntary and mechanical), not
willful.
Automaton comes to us from the Greek, so its
correct plural is automata
 A finite automaton is a collection
of three things:
A finite set of states, one of which is designated
as the initial state, called the start state, and
some (maybe none) of which are designated as
final state.
An alphabet ∑ of possible input letters.
A finite set of transitions that tell for each
state and for each letter of the input alphabet
which state to go to next.
 ▪ It works by being presented with an input
string of letters that it reads letters by
letter starting at the leftmost letter.
▪ Start state -> seqseqseq -> end state
 FA is also called as:
▪ Finite acceptor / language acceptor
▪ Language recognizer
▪ The set of all strings that do leave us in a
final state is called the language
defined by the finite automaton.
▪ We may say the a word is not accepted by this
finite automaton because it does not lead to final
state, or
▪ We may also say that the word is rejected by
this FA
▪ The set of all strings accepted is the
language associated with the FA.
▪ The set of all strings accepted is the
language associated with the FA. The
we can say that:
▪ “this FA accepts the language L” or
▪ “L is the language accepted by this FA”, or
▪ “L is the language of the FA”
▪ Question:
▪ If language L1 is contained in L2 and a certain FA
accepts L2.
Is this FA accept all the word in language L1.
 Suppose that the input alphabet are a and
b. Let us also assume that there are only
three states, x,y, and z
Rule 1 From state x and input a, go to state y
Rule 2 From state x and input b, go to state z
Rule 3 From state y and input a, go to state x
Rule 4 From state y and input b, go to state z
Rule 5 From state z and any input, go to state z
▪ Let us designate state x as the starting state and
state z as the only final state
▪ We now have a perfectly defined FA because it
fulfills all the requirements: states, alphabet,
transitions
 Try to input the following to our FA
and determine if it is in the language
defined in our FA
▪ aaa
▪ abba
 Describe the language associated
with this FA
 Create the regular expression
associated with this FA
 It is much simpler to summarize them in a
table format.
▪ The entries inside the table are the new states that
the FA moves into – the transition states.
▪ This is called transition table

a b
Start x y z
y x z
Final z z z
▪ Even though it is no more than a table of
symbols, we consider an FA to be a
machine, that is, we understand that this
FA has dynamic capabilities. It moves. it
process inputs.
▪ We may make the definition of FAs even
more mathematically abstract by
replacing the transition table with a total
function whose input is a pair of state and
alphabet letter and whose output is a
single state.
▪ This function is called the transition function,
usually denoted δ (lowercase Greek delta)
 The abstract definition of an FA is
then
1.A finite set of states Q = {q0 q1 q2…} of which
q0 is the start state.
2.A subset of Q called the final state.
3.An alphabet ∑={x0 x1 x2…).
4.A transition function δ associating each pair of
state and letter with a state:
δ(q1 , xj ) = xk:
Note: we never refer to this transition
function again….
▪ Transition Diagram - a pictorial
representation of an FA that gives us
more of a feel for the motion
▪ We begin by representing each state by a small
circle.
▪ From each state, we draw arrows showing to
which other states the different letters of the
input alphabet will lead us.
▪ We label these arrows with the corresponding
alphabet letters.
▪ We make a loop indicating that a certain letter
makes a state go back to itself
▪ We indicate the start state:
by labeling it with the word “start”
by a minus sign (-)
an arrow
▪ We indicate the final state:
by word “final”
by plus sign (+)
drawing a box or another circle around its
circle
▪ Create the diagram of the FA we have just
defined earlier.

▪ Trace the direction/path of which the

following inputs will
▪ aaaabba
▪ bbaabbbb
▪ We borrow from graph theory the name
direct edge, or simply edge, for the
arrow between states.
▪ An edge comes from one state and leads to
another (or the same, if it is a lood)
▪ Every state has as many outgoing edges as
there are letters in the alphabet.
▪ It is possible for a state to have no incoming
edges or to have many.
▪ There are machines for which it is not
necessary to give the states specific
names.
▪ we can still determine whether a particular input
string will be accepted by our machine or not

a
-
a
b b

+
a b
 One of many FAs that accepts all words
is a, b

 Similarly, there are FAs that accept no

language.
a a, b

b
 In this case, we can say that the graph is
disconnected

a, b

a, b
- +
a, b
▪ Given the diagram below

a a, b

- +

▪ Describe the language associated with this

machine
▪ Construct the regular expression of the FA
associated with this machine
▪ It is possible to look at the world of FAs in two
ways:
▪ We could start with the machine and try to analyze
it to see what language it accepts, or
▪ We could start with a desired language in our mind
and try to construct an FA that would act as a
language-recognizer or language definer
▪ We must practice studying FA from two
different angles:
▪ Given a language can we build a machine for it.
▪ Given a machine, we can deduce its language.
 Build
an FA that accepts all words
containing a double letter aa or bb,
and only those words
▪ Let us build a machine that accepts the
language of all words over the alphabet {a b}
with an even number of letters
▪ Suppose we want to build a finite automaton
that accepts all the words in the language
a(a+b)*
▪ Build your FA using 4 and 5 states.
▪ Build an FA that accepts all words containing
a tipple letter aaa or bbb, and only those
words. Hits:
- +
a a a
 State 2
We have just read an a that was not
preceded by an a and we are looking for a
second a as the next input State 4
We have
a 2 a already
State 1 discovered the
Start here but do existence of a
not get too double letter in
a,b
comfortable; you the input string
1- 4+ and we are
are going to leave b a
immediately going to wait
out the rest of
the input
sequence and
b b then announce
3
acceptance
when it is all
State 3 over
We have just read a b that was not
preceded by an b and we are looking for a
second b as the next input
 Create an FA that accepts all words
with b as the third letter and rejects
all other words.
 4

a a, b
a, b a, b
1- 2 3

b a, b
5+

= (aab + abb + bab + bbb) (a+b)*

= (a+b)(a+b)b(a+b)*
 This FA accepts only the word baa

b a a
- +

b b
a a, b

a, b
 Create an FA that accepts exactly
two strings baa and ab
 a a b a a
+ - +

a b
a, b a, b

a, b
▪ What is the language accepted by this
machine?
a
b
1- 2

b
a b

3+ 4
b
a
a
▪ This FA accepts the language in the previous
FA and null(^)

a a
b
±

b b

a
 How can you define the language
expressed by the FA below?

a,b
a,b
±
 Create
the FA that figures out the
language that accepts all words that
ends with the letter a
 a
b a
+
-

= b*ab*(ab*ab*)*
 Create the FA of the language
associated with the regular expressions:
(5 pts each)
▪ (a+b)*a
▪ ^ + ((a+b)*a)
▪ (a+b)* aa (a+b)*
 Create an FA that accepts all words that
have different first and last letters. It is
associated with the Regular expression
a(a+b)*b + b(a+b)*a (15 pts)
▪ Build an FA that accepts only the language of
all words with b as the second letter
▪ Build an Fa that accepts only the words baa,
ab and abb and no other strings longer or
shorter
▪ Build an FA that accept only those words that
have more than four letters
 Build an FA that accepts only those
words that do not end with ba.
 Build an FA that accepts only those
words that begin or end with a
double letter.
 Build an FA that accepts only those
words that have an even number of
substrings ab.
 Consider the picture below
b

1± 2
b

a a a a

b
3 4