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In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules called a formal grammar. The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbols, letters, or tokens that concatenate into strings called words. [1]
Formal language, which is a set of well-formed formulas, which are strings of symbols from an alphabet, formed by a formal grammar (consisting of production rules or formation rules). Deductive system, deductive apparatus, or proof system, which has rules of inference that take axioms and infers theorems, both of which are part of the formal ...
Formal language theory, the discipline that studies formal grammars and languages, is a branch of applied mathematics. Its applications are found in theoretical computer science, theoretical linguistics, formal semantics, mathematical logic, and other areas. A formal grammar is a set of rules for rewriting strings, along with a "start symbol ...
Additionally, formal rules can be applied outside of logic or mathematics to human language, treating it as a mathematical formal system with a formal grammar. [ 27 ] A characteristic stance of formalist approaches is the primacy of form (like syntax ), and the conception of language as a system in isolation from the outer world.
[2] [3] In this view, language is regarded as arising from a mathematical relationship between meaning and form. The formal description of language was further developed by linguists including J. R. Firth and Simon Dik, giving rise to modern grammatical frameworks such as systemic functional linguistics and functional discourse grammar.
In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow prescriptive norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal ...
The general idea of a hierarchy of grammars was first described by Noam Chomsky in "Three models for the description of language". [1] Marcel-Paul Schützenberger also played a role in the development of the theory of formal languages; the paper "The algebraic theory of context free languages" [2] describes the modern hierarchy, including context-free grammars.
Historically, with the advent of written representations, formal rules about language usage tend to appear also, although such rules tend to describe writing conventions more accurately than conventions of speech. [11] Formal grammars are codifications of usage which are developed by repeated documentation and observation over time.