The Chomsky Hierarchy

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Linear-Bounded Automata:

Same as Turing Machines with one difference:

the input string tape space

is the only tape space allowed to use

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 Linear Bounded Automaton (LBA)

Input string
[ a b c d e ]

Working space
Left-end Right-end
in tape
marker marker

All computation is done between end markers

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We define LBA’s as NonDeterministic

Open Problem:
NonDeterministic LBA’s
have same power as
Deterministic LBA’s ?

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Example languages accepted by LBAs:

n n n n!
L  {a b c } L  {a }

LBA’s have more power than PDA’s

(pushdown automata)

LBA’s have less power than Turing Machines

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Unrestricted Grammars:

Productions
uv

String of variables String of variables

and terminals and terminals

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Example unrestricted grammar:

S  aBc
aB  cA
Ac  d

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Theorem:
A language L is Turing-Acceptable
if and only if L is generated by an
unrestricted grammar

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Context-Sensitive Grammars:

Productions
uv

String of variables String of variables

and terminals and terminals

and: |u|  |v|

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 n n n
The language {a b c }
is context-sensitive:

S  abc | aAbc
Ab  bA
Ac  Bbcc
bB  Bb
aB  aa | aaA
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Theorem:
A language L is context sensistive
if and only if
it is accepted by a Linear-Bounded automaton

Observation:
There is a language which is context-sensitive
but not decidable
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The Chomsky Hierarchy

Non Turing-Acceptable

Turing-Acceptable
decidable

Context-sensitive

Context-free

Regular
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