Examples of Context Free Languages

Question

I'm having a hard time thinking of context free languages. The only example I've been able to think of is $0^n1^n$, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any others. Can I get some examples?

And we know that all regular languages must be able to be constructed by a DFA. So a language such as a^nb is not regular, right? Because n could be infinite — user67794, Mar 15 '17 at 07:53
I didn't understand your comment. ${a^nb| n\ge0}$ is regular, $n$ can be arbitrarily large, but for any given string, is always finite. You can construct a DFA for it. Additionally, the implication I made is one directional. A language that is not regular could still be context free, like the example in your question. — GoodDeeds, Mar 15 '17 at 07:58
Below your question there is a button, marked "context-free". Click on it, and get inspired. — Hendrik Jan, Mar 15 '17 at 11:44

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 15 '17 at 12:38

4

Here are some of the examples of context free languages

$\{ w \in \{0,1\}^*\mid \ w$ contains at least three ones }
$\{ w \in \{0,1\}^*\mid \ w = w^{R}$ and $\mid w \mid $ is even }
$\{ w \in \{0,1\}^*\mid \ $ the length of $w$ is odd and the middle symbol is $0$ }
$\{ a^{i} b^{j} c^{k} \mid \ i,j,k \ge 0 $ and $ i + j = k $ }
$\{ a^{i} b^{j} c^{k} \mid \ i,j,k \ge 0, $ and $ i = k $ or $i = k$ }
$\phi$

Reference : https://web.njit.edu/~marvin/cs341/hw/hwsoln05.pdf

answered Mar 15 '17 at 12:38

Thank you for the link to Nakayama's material. It is helpful for me studying this at a completely different university. I believe however (maybe wrong) the OP was probably interested in context free (non-regular) language examples, specifically for using them as examples in proofs or homework. For others - in Nakayama's examples above, the first one is regular while the others are not. I found this thread with almost the same question as the OP. I was looking for examples of context free languages other than the quintessential one listed. And not interested in regular. – delrocco Jan 29 '19 at 21:24

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 15 '17 at 07:57

More general examples of context-free languages which are not regular are the Dyck languages of balanced parentheses of several types. A 1-type Dyck language contains words such as (), (()), ()(), and so on. A 2-type Dyck language contains words such as ([]), ()[], [([()([])])[]], and so on.

The Chomsky–Schützenberger representation theorem states that, in some sense, Dyck languages are the most general type of context-free languages.

Examples of Context Free Languages

2 Answers2