Lecturer: Amir Daneshgar

Second Semester 1402 - 1403

Formal Languages and Automata
Homework 2

(Submitted: March 15, 2024)

(Due: April 5, 2024)

1. Do the following exercises from Martin’s Book Page 34:

Exercises: 1.12, 1.13, 1.14, 1.16, 1.17, 1.20, 1.44, 1.65.

2. The fundamental theorem of automata theory.

Recall that by the fundamental theorem of automata theory, given a language L ⊆ Σ∗ , the minimal
right-automaton describing L (possibly having an infinite number of states!) may be defined on the
set of states
def
Q = {x\L | x ∈ Σ∗ },
in which
def
x\L = {u ∈ Σ∗ | xu ∈ L}.
The initial state is the state Λ\L = L and a transition from the state x\L with reading the symbol
i results in the next state
i\(x\L) = (xi)\L.
Moreover, a state x\L is a final (i.e. accepting) state if Λ ∈ x\L.
Note that, in particular, a language L is defined to be regular if Q is a finite set, i.e. if it may be
described by a finite automaton.
The dual of the above automaton (that may be called the minimal left-automaton) describes LR ,
the reversed language, having the set of states
def
QR = {x/L | x ∈ Σ∗ },

in which
def
x/L = {u ∈ Σ∗ | ux ∈ L},
and the initial state, the final states and the transition function are defined similarly.
Given a language L ⊆ Σ∗ , the main difficulty is to find the set of states of one of these two automata
and to verify whether the set is a finite set in order to provide a finite descriprtion of L. Again, it
is instructive to note that if a finite automaton is already given as a finite description of L, then
finding distinct x\L’s are essentially the same as finding distinguishable states, since x\L = y\L is
equivalent to the statement that for any u ∈ Σ∗ either both xu and yu are in L or both of them are
in Lc .
Now, describe the algorithm 2.40 in Page 75 of Martin’s book in terms of the fundamental theorem
and slashes.

3. Do the following exercises from Martin’s Book Page 77:

Exercises: 2.1(f), 2.2, 2.3, 2.12(b), 2.13, 2.17, 2.57(d,h)