From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Feb 9 11:23:15 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D99337B405 for ; Sun, 9 Feb 2003 11:23:14 -0800 (PST) Received: from avocet.mail.pas.earthlink.net (avocet.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E3E943F85 for ; Sun, 9 Feb 2003 11:23:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rsidd@papagena.rockefeller.edu) Received: from user-0cev12u.cable.mindspring.com ([24.239.132.94] helo=bluerondo.a.la.turk) by avocet.mail.pas.earthlink.net with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 18hx2k-0002IZ-01 for chat@freebsd.org; Sun, 09 Feb 2003 11:23:10 -0800 Received: (qmail 21981 invoked by uid 1001); 9 Feb 2003 19:23:09 -0000 Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 14:23:09 -0500 From: Rahul Siddharthan To: Erik Trulsson Cc: Mark Murray , Dag-Erling Smorgrav , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: languages Message-ID: <20030209192309.GA21962@papagena.rockefeller.edu> References: <20030209181722.GA19704@papagena.rockefeller.edu> <200302091826.h19IQBaX035066@grimreaper.grondar.org> <20030209184658.GA19887@papagena.rockefeller.edu> <20030209191203.GA37952@falcon.midgard.homeip.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030209191203.GA37952@falcon.midgard.homeip.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 5.0-CURRENT i386 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Erik Trulsson wrote: > The definition of "language" in mathematics (which is also used in > computer science) is as follows: > > An alphabet L is a finite non-empty set of symbols. > Let L* be the set of all strings of elements in L (including the empty string.) > A _language_ over L is a subset of L*. > > Note that this is a very broad definition and does not concern itself > with any meaning of a language. Well, it arguably defines a vocabulary. What about syntax, grammar? Aren't those part of a language? R To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message