Bounded Languages Described by GF(2)-grammars

Abstract

GF(2)-grammars are a recently introduced grammar family with some unusual algebraic properties. They are closely connected to unambiguous grammars. By using the method of formal power series, we establish strong conditions that are necessary for subsets of a^* b^* and a^* b^* c^* to be described by some GF(2)-grammar. By further applying the established results, we settle the long-standing open question of proving inherent ambiguity of the language {a^n b^m c^k | n != m or m != k}$, as well as give a new purely algebraic proof of the inherent ambiguity of the language {a^n b^m c^k}{n = m or m = k}.