Scribd
Upload
19 views6 pages

pt3 2

Uploaded by

ARMAN KHAN
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
19 views6 pages

pt3 2

Uploaded by

ARMAN KHAN
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 6

1 Parse Trees

Parse trees are a representation of derivations that is much more compact.


Several derivations may correspond to the same parse tree. For example, in
the balanced parenthesis grammar, the following parse tree:
s
s s
( s ) ( s )
e e

corresponds to the derivation

S ⇒ SS ⇒ S(S) ⇒ (S)(S) ⇒ (S)() ⇒ ()()

as well as this one:

S ⇒ SS ⇒ (S)S ⇒ (S)(S) ⇒ ()(S) ⇒ ()()

and some others as well.

• In a parse tree, the points are called nodes. Each node has a label on
it.

• The topmost node is called the root. The bottom nodes are called
leaves.

• In a parse tree for a grammar G, the leaves must be labelled with


terminal symbols from G, or with ǫ. The root is often labeled with the
start symbol of G, but not always.

• If a node N labeled with A has children N1 , N2 , . . . , Nk from left to


right, labeled with A1 , A2 , . . . , Ak , respectively, then A → A1 A2 , . . . Ak
must be a production in the grammar G.

• The yield of a parse tree is the concatenation of the labels of the leaves,
from left to right. The yield of the tree above is ()().

1
1.1 Leftmost and Rightmost Derivations
• In a leftmost derivation, at each step the leftmost nonterminal is re-
placed. In a rightmost derivation, at each step the rightmost nonter-
minal is replaced.
L R
• Such replacements are indicated by ⇒ and ⇒, respectively.
L∗ R∗
• Their transitive closures are ⇒ and ⇒ , respectively.

In the balanced parenthesis grammar, this is a leftmost derivation:

S ⇒ SS ⇒ (S)S ⇒ ()S ⇒ ()(S) ⇒ ()()

This is a rightmost derivation:

S ⇒ SS ⇒ S(S) ⇒ S() ⇒ (S)() ⇒ ()()

It is possible to obtain a derivation from a parse tree and vice versa. Here
is an example of obtaining a derivation from a parse tree, going from left to
right:

s => s s => (s) s => () s => () ( s ) => () ()


s s (s) (s ) e (s) (s ) e

( s ) ( s ) e e e e

e e

• In this case, we obtained a leftmost derivation, but we could also have


obtained a rightmost derivation in a similar way.

• Using the same diagram, going from right to left, starting with only an
arbitrary derivation, we can obtain a parse tree:

2
s => s s => (s) s => () s => () ( s ) => () ()
s s (s) (s ) e (s) (s ) e

( s ) ( s ) e e e e

e e

Thus from a parse tree, we can obtain a leftmost or a rightmost derivation,


and from an arbitrary derivation, we can obtain a parse tree. This gives us
theorem 3.2.1 in the text:

Theorem 1.1 (3.2.1) Let G = (V, Σ, R, S) be a context-free grammar, A ∈


V − Σ, and w ∈ Σ∗ . Then the following are equivalent (TFAE):

1. A ⇒∗ w

2. There is a parse tree with root labeled A and yield w


L∗
3. There is a leftmost derivation A ⇒ w
R∗
4. There is a rightmost derivation A ⇒ w

Proof:

• We showed above how from a derivation one can construct a parse


tree. This shows (1) implies (2).
• Also, we showed above how from a parse tree one can construct
a leftmost or a rightmost derivation. This shows that (2) implies
(3) and (2) implies (4).
• Finally, leftmost and rightmost derivations are derivations, which
shows that (3) implies (1) and (4) implies (1).
• Thus all four conditions are equivalent.

3
1.2 Ambiguity
Some sentences in English are ambiguous:

Fighting tigers can be dangerous.


Time flies like an arrow.

Humor is also often based on ambiguity. Example jokes:

How do you stop an elephant from charging?


Why did the student eat his homework?
What ended in 1896?

There is also a technical concept of ambiguity for context-free grammars.

A context-free grammar G = (V, Σ, R, S) is ambiguous if there is some


string w ∈ Σ∗ such that there are two distinct parse trees T1 and T2 having
S at the root and having yield w.

Equivalently, w has two or more leftmost derivations, or two or more


rightmost derivations.
Note that languages are not ambiguous; grammars are. Also, it has to be
the same string w with two different (leftmost or rightmost) derivations for
a grammar to be ambiguouos.
Here is an example of an ambiguous grammar:

E →E+E E→a
E →E∗E E→b
E → (E) E→c

In this grammar, the string a + b ∗ c can be parsed in two different ways,


corresponding to doing the addition before or after the multiplication. This is
very bad for a compiler, because the compiler uses the parse tree to generate
code, meaning that this string could have two very different semantics.
Here are two parse trees for the string a + b ∗ c in this grammar:

4
E E
E + E E * E
a E * E E + E c
b c a b

Ambiguity actually happened with the original Algol 60 syntax, which


was ambiguous for this string:

if x then if y then z else w;

How is this string ambiguous? Which values of x, y, or z lead to the ambi-


guity?
There is a notion of inherent ambiguity for context-free languages; a
context-free language L is inherently ambiguous if every context-free gram-
mar G for L is ambiguous. As an example, the language

{an bn cm dm : n ≥ 1, m ≥ 1} ∪ {an bm cm dn : n ≥ 1, m ≥ 1}

is inherently ambiguous. In any context-free grammar for L, some strings of


the form an bn cn dn will have two distinct parse trees.
Unfortunately, the problem of whether a context-free grammar is am-
biguous, is undecidable. However, there are some patterns in a context-free
grammar that frequently indicate ambiguity:

5
S → SS
S→a

S→A
A → AA
A→a

S → AA
A→S
A→a

S → SbS
S→a

S → AbA
A→S
A→a

The following is not ambiguous:


S → aS
S → bS
S→ǫ
In general, a production A → AA causes ambiguity if it is reachable from
the start symbol and some terminal string is derivable from A.

You might also like