regular language

English

Noun

regular language (plural regular languages)

1. (computer science) A formal language that can be expressed using a regular expression or finite-state machine.

   Synonym: rational language

   Hypernym: formal language

   • 2007, Dick Grune, Ceriel J.H. Jacobs, Parsing Techniques: A Practical Guide, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 152:

     There is an interesting way to get the negation (complement) of a regular language L defined by a FS automaton, provided the automaton is ε-free.

   • 2014, Brian MacWhinney, William O'Grady, The Handbook of Language Emergence, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 393:

     A regular language is one that can be generated by a regular grammar or finite-state automaton, the lowest level of the Chomsky hierarchy. It is well known that these grammars are inadequate to represent natural language syntax.

Related terms

• regular expression

Further reading

• regular language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia