Generative Capacity of Contextual Grammars with Subregular Selection Languages*

Abstract

A contextual grammar is a language generating mechanism inspired by generating sentences in natural languages. An existing string can be extended to a new string of the language by adjoining a context before and behind the string or by inserting it into the string around some subword. The first mode is called external derivation whereas the second mode is called internal derivation. If conditions are given, around which words which contexts can be adjoined, we speak about contextual grammars with selection. We give an overview about the generative capacity of contextual grammars (working externally or internally) where the selection languages belong to subregular language classes. All languages generated by contextual grammars where all selection languages are elements of a certain subregular language family form again a language family. We compare such families which are based on finite, monoidal, nilpotent, combinational, definite, suffix-closed, ordered, commutative, circular, non-counting, power-separating, or union-free languages, or based on languages defined by restrictions regarding the descriptional complexity.