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The need for a comprehensive survey-type exposition on formal languages and related mainstream areas of computer science has been evident for some years. In the early 1970s, when the book Formal Languages by the second-mentioned editor appeared, it was still quite feasible to write a comprehensive book with that title and include also topics of current research interest. This would not be possible any more. A standard-sized book on for In al languages would either have to stay on a fairly low level or else be specialized and restricted to some narrow sector of the field.
The setup becomes drastically different in a collection of contributions, where the best authorities in the world join forces, each of them concentrating on their own areas of specialization. The present three-volume Handbook constitutes such a unique collection. In these three volumes we present the current state of the art in formal language theory. We were most satisfied with the enthusiastic response given to our request for contributions by specialists representing various subfields. The need for a Handbook of Formal Languages was in many answers expressed in different ways: as an easily accessible historical reference, a general source of information, an overall course-aid, and a compact collection of material for self-study. We are convinced that the final result will satisfy such various needs.
The theory of formal languages constitutes the stem or backbone of the field of science now generally known as theoretical computer science. In a very true sense its role has been the same as that of philosophy with respect to science in general: it has nourished and often initiated a number of more specialized fields. In this sense formal language theory has been thc origin of many other fields. However, the historical development can be viewed also from a different angle. The origins of formal language theory, as we know it today, come from different parts of human knowledge. This also explains the wide and diverse applicability of the theory. Let us have a brief look at some of these origins. The topic is discussed in more detail in the introductory Chapter 1 of Volume 1.
About Volume 2
Some brief guidelines about the contents of the present Volume 2 follow. Problems about complexity occur everywhere in language theory Chapter 1 gives an overall account. Parsing techniques are essential in applications, both for natural and programming languages. They are dealt with in Chapter 2, while Chapters 3-6 study extensions and variations of classical language theory. While Chapter 3 continues the general theory of context-free languages, Chapters 5 and 6 are motivated by linguistics, and Chapter 4, motivated by artificial intelligence, is also applicable to distributed systems. DNA computing has been an important recent breakthrough - some language-theoretic aspects are presented in Chapter 7 . Chapter 8 considers the string editing problem which in various settings models a variety of problems arising from DNA and protein sequences. Chapter 9 considers several methods of word matching that are based on the use of automata. Chapter 10 discusses the relationship between automata theory and symbolic dynamics (the latter area has originated in topology). By its very nature the whole of cryptology can be viewed as a part of language theory. Chapter 11 gives an account of language-theoretic techniques that have turned out to be especially useful in cryptology.
Complexity: A Language-Theoretic Point of View
Parsing of Context-Free Languages
Grammars with Controlled Derivations
Grammar Systems
Contextual Grammars and Natural Languages
Contextual Grammars and Formal Languages
Language Theory and Molecular Genetics
String Editing and Longest Common Subsequences
Automata for Matching Patterns
Symbolic Dynamics and Finite Automata
Cryptology: Language-Theoretic Aspects