Solutions to Assignment 4

October 25, 2000

Exercise 1 (20 pts) Let G = (V, , R, S)

= {a, +, , (, )}, S = E and R is
E
T
F

be a context-free grammar such that V = {E, T, F },

E+T |T
T F |F
(E) | a

Give parse trees and leftmost derivations for the following strings.
1. a
2. a*(a+a)
3. a+a+a
4. ((a+(a)))
Solution We present the leftmost derivations below.
1. S E T F a.
2. S E T T F F F a F a (E) a (E + T ) a (T + T ) a (F + T )
a (a + T ) a (a + F ) a (a + a)
3. S E + T E + T + T T + T + T T + T + T F + T + T a + T + T a + F + T
a+a+T a+a+F a+a+T a+a+a
4. S T F (E) (T ) (F ) ((E)) ((E + T )) ((T + T )) ((F + T ))
((a + T )) ((a + F )) ((a + (E))) ((a + (T ))) ((a + (F ))) ((a + (a)))
Exercise 2 Answer each part for the following context-free grammar.
R
S
T
X

XRX | S
aT b | bT a
XT X | X | 
a|b

1. What are the variables and terminals of G? Which is the start symbol? (The set of variables
is {R, S, X, T } and the set of terminals is {a, b}. R is the start symbol.)
2. Give three examples of strings in L(G). (ab, ba, aab)
3. Give three examples of strings not in L(G). (a, b, aa)
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4. True or False: T aba. (False)

5. True or False: T aba. (True)
6. True or False: T T . (False)
7. True or False: T T . (True)
8. True or False: XXX aba. (True)
9. True or False: X aba. (False)
10. True or False: T XX. (True)
11. True or False: T XXX. (True)
12. True or False: S . (False)
13. Give a description of L(G) in English. Every word in L(G) is of form w1 awbw2 or w1 bwaw2
for some w, w1 , w2 {a, b} such that w1 and w2 have the same length.
Exercise 3 Give context-free grammars that generate the following languages.
1. {w | w contains at least three 1s}
2. {w | w starts and ends with the same symbol}
3. {w | the length of w is odd}
4. {w | the length of w is odd and its middle is 0}
5. {w | w contains more 1s than 0s}
6. {w | w is a palindrome, i.e., w = wR }
7. The empty set
Solution
1. Here is a context-free grammar for L = {w | w contains at least three 1s}:
S T 1T 1T 1T
T 0T | 1T | 
2. Here is a context-free grammar for L = {w | w starts and ends with the same symbol}:
S 0T 0 | 1T 1
T 0T | 1T | 
3. Here is a context-free grammar for L = {w | the length of w is odd}:
S 0T | 1T
T 0S | 1S | 
Note that S and T generate words with even and odd lengths, respectively.
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4. Here is a context-free grammar for L = {w | the length of w is odd and its middle is 0}:
S 0S0 | 0S1 | 1S0 | 1S1 | 0
5. Here is a context-free grammar for L = {w | w contains more 1s than 0s}:
S T S | 1T | 1S
T T T | 0T 1 | 1T 0 | 
Note that T generates all words in which there are equal number of 1s and 0s. If a word w
contains more 1s that 0s, then w must be of one of the following forms.
w = 1w1 such that w1 contains more 1s than 0s.
w = 1w1 such that w1 contains equal number of 1s and 0s.
w = w1 w2 such that w1 contains equal number of 1s and 0s and w2 contains more 1s
than 0s.
6. Here is a context-free grammar for L = {w | w is a palindrome, i.e., w = wR }:
S 0S0 | 1S1 | 0 | 1 | 
7. Here is a context-free grammar for the empty set:
S S

Exercise 4 Please convert the following CFG into an equivalent CFG in Chomsky normal form,
using the procedure given in Theorem 2.6.
A BAB | ABA | B | 
B 00 | 
Solution We introduce a new start symbol S and obtain the following CFG.
S A
A BAB | ABA | B | 
B 00 | 
After -rule elimination, we generate the following CFG.
S A|
A BAB | ABA | B | BA | AB | AA | BB
B 00
After unit rule elimination, we generate the following CFG.
S BAB | ABA | BA | AB | AA | BB | 00 | 
A BAB | ABA | BA | AB | AA | BB | 00
B 00

We now convert the above rules into the proper form.

S
A
B
U
V
W

BU | AV | BA | AB | AA | BB | W W | 
BU | AV | BA | AB | AA | BB | W W
WW
AB
BA
0