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Problem Set 3 Comments

Problem Set 3 comments are here: [PDF]

Class 11: Moore, Mealy, and Markov

Class 11 slides: [PDF] [PPTX]

Here are links to some of the papers from today’s class:

Class 10

Class 10 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

If you have topics or questions you want me to review in Thursday’s class, post comments here.

Thursday Morning Office Hours

Since several people have complained that they are not able to make any of the regularly scheduled office hours, I will start holding regular office hours Thursday mornings, 8:30-9:30am. They will start this week, and continue throughout the semester, so long as they appear to be useful.

Extra Office Hours Monday

I will hold extra office hours this Monday (Feb 22), noon-1pm (as well as my usual office hours 1-3pm).

Class 9: Context-Free Languages Contextually

Class 9 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

Problem Set 2 Comments

The Problem Set 2 comments are here. I have also placed a folder with printed copies in the boxes at the entrance of Olsson Hall.

Exam Review Session

Sonali will hold a review session for Exam 1 on Sunday, February 28, 5-6:30pm in Olsson 228E.

Class 8: Non-Context-Free Languages

Class 8 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

Problem Set 3

Problem Set 3 is now posted: [PDF] [LaTeX template]

Problem Set 3 is due next Tuesday, 23 February at the beginning of class. Note that you only have one week for PS3 (but it is somewhat shorter than PS2).

Preparing for Exam 1

Exam 1 will be in class on Tuesday, 2 March. It will cover material from Problem Set 1-3, Sipser Chapters 0-2, and Classes 1-9 (through 23 February). For this exam, each student will be permitted to bring one standard-size (8.5×11″) page of notes to use during the exam, but will not be permitted to use any other resources. You may use both sides of the page and generate your notes in any way you choose, but should [More...]

Non-Recursive Human Languages?

Daniel raised the question last class about whether there is a non-recursive human language. Although I felt quite confident in class that such a thing could not exist, there have been some controversial claims about the existence of a non-recursive human language. The language in question is known as Pirahã, spoken by a remote tribe in the Brazillian Amazon. Dan Everett, now a professor of Linguistics at Illinois State University, studied the Pirahã language [More...]

Class 7: Context-Free Languages

Class 7 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

(My tablet has a bad habit of crashing between the classroom and my office, so I lost the ink for this class. I’ve tried to recreate the most important ink on the slides.)

Survey Responses

Here are results from the Quick Surveys submitted so far (I will leave the survey open, so you can submit at any time).

24 surveys were submitted.

That’s a pretty dismal response rate! The survey was very short and simple to submit, but barely 1/3 of the class did so. Perhaps only people who are unhappy with the class filled in the survey and the majority are perfectly happy with how everything is going. If that’s [More...]

Class 6: Deterministic Pushdown Automata

Class 6 slides: [PDF] [PPTX]

Notes on PDAs

Quick Survey

Please give me some quick feedback on how the course is going so far by submitting this survey. (The survey is anonymous, you don’t need to be logged in to submit it.)

Friday Office Hours

Sonali has offered to hold office hours Friday mornings starting this Friday. They will be Fridays, 10-11:30am in Thorton Stacks. This is in addition to my regularly scheduled Monday (1:15-3pm) and Thursday (after class-4:30pm) office hours.

Class 5: Non-Regular Languages

Here are the notes on regular languages.

Class 5 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]

Problem Set 1 Comments

Here are the Comments on Problem Set 1.

The average score for PS1 is 60 (full-credit answers for all non-bonus questions would be worth 78 total points). By question, the averages were:

1a 1.96/2
1b 1.98/2
1c 1.95/2
1d [More...]

Problem Set 2

Problem Set 2 is now posted: [PDF] [LaTeX template]. It is due on Tuesday, 16 February.

PS2 covers NFAs (questions 1-3), regular and non-regular languages (questions 4-7), and push-down automata and grammars (questions 8-10). We’ve covered everything for questions 1-3 in class already, will cover what is used for questions 4-7 in tomorrow’ class (Class 5), and will introduce PDAs and grammars next week. Please use the comments on this post to ask questions about PS2.

Class 4: Nondeterminism

Class 4 slides: [PPTX] [PDF]