Thread automaton

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In automata theory, the thread automaton (plural: automata) is an extended type of finite-state automata that recognizes a mildly context-sensitive language class above the tree-adjoining languages. [1]

Contents

Formal definition

A thread automaton consists of

A pathu1...unU * is a string of path components uiU; n may be 0, with the empty path denoted by ε. A thread has the form u1...un:A, where u1...unU* is a path, and AN is a state. A thread storeS is a finite set of threads, viewed as a partial function from U* to N, such that dom(S) is closed by prefix.

A thread automaton configuration is a triple ‹l,p,S›, where l denotes the current position in the input string, p is the active thread, and S is a thread store containing p. The initial configuration is ‹0,ε,{ε:AS}›. The final configuration is ‹n,u,{ε:AS,u:AF}›, where n is the length of the input string and u abbreviates δ(AS). A transition in the set Θ may have one of the following forms, and changes the current automaton configuration in the following way:

changes the configuration from  l,p,S∪{p:B}›   to  l+1,p,S∪{p:C}›
changes  l,p,S∪{p:B}›   to  l,p,S∪{p:C}›
changes  l,p,S∪{p:B}›   to  l,pu,S∪{p:B,pu:C}›   where u=δ(B) and pu∉dom(S)
changes  l,pu,S∪{p:B,pu:C}›   to  l,p,S∪{p:C}›   where δ(C)=⊥ and pu∉dom(S)
changes  l,p,S∪{p:B,pu:C}›   to  l,pu,S∪{p:B,pu:D}›   where u=δ(B)
changes  l,pu,S∪{p:B,pu:C}›   to  l,p,S∪{p:D,pu:C}›   where δ(C)=⊥

One may prove that δ(B)=u for POP and SPOP transitions, and δ(C)=⊥ for SPUSH transitions. [2]

An input string is accepted by the automaton if there is a sequence of transitions changing the initial into the final configuration.

Notes

  1. called non-terminal symbols by Villemonte (2002), p.1r

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References

  1. Villemonte de la Clergerie, Éric (2002). "Parsing mildly context-sensitive languages with thread automata". COLING '02 Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. 1 (3): 1–7. doi: 10.3115/1072228.1072256 . Retrieved 2016-10-15.
  2. Villemonte (2002), p.1r-2r