Your browser does not fully support modern features. Please upgrade for a smoother experience.
Formal Grammars: History
Please note this is an old version of this entry, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Formal grammars are explicit systems of symbols and rules that characterize the well-formed strings of a language by specifying how linguistic units can be combined or derived according to defined constraints [1][2]. In a formal representation, a grammar is typically specified by a finite set of terminal symbols, a set of nonterminal symbols, a set of production rules, and a designated start symbol; the strings derivable from the start symbol determine the language generated by that grammar [1]. Formal grammars differ in the constraints imposed on their production rules and consequently in the classes of languages they can generate; they are therefore a family of formally specified grammatical systems rather than a single grammatical model [1][2].

  • formal language theory
  • production rules
  • generative grammar
  • Chomsky hierarchy

Linguistics and Language Analysis • Language and Linguistics • Arts and Humanities • Social Sciences

References

  1. Willem J.M. Levelt. Formal Grammars in Linguistics and Psycholinguistics; John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2008. [CrossRef]
  2. Maurice Gross; André Lentin. Introduction to Formal Grammars; Springer Nature: Durham, NC, United States, 1970. [CrossRef]
More
This entry is offline, you can click here to edit this entry!
Write an Entry