Departmental Papers (CIS)
Date of this Version
12-2006
Document Type
Conference Paper
Recommended Citation
Rajeev Alur and Swarat Chaudhuri, "Branching Pushdown Tree Automata", Lecture Notes in Computer Science: FSTTCS 2006: Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science 4337, 393-404. December 2006. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11944836_36
Abstract
We observe that pushdown tree automata (PTAs) known in the literature cannot express combinations of branching and pushdown properties. This is because a PTA processes the children of a tree node in possibly different control states but with identical stacks. We propose branching pushdown tree automata (BPTAs) as a solution. In a BPTA, a push-move views its matching pops as an unbounded, unordered set of successor moves and can assert existential and universal requirements on them, just the way finite automata on unranked, unordered trees pass requirements to the children of a tree node. We show that BPTAs can express some natural properties and are more expressive than PTAs. Using a small-model theorem, we prove their emptiness problem to be decidable. The problem becomes undecidable, however, if push-moves are allowed to specify the ordering of matching pops.
Subject Area
CPS Theory
Publication Source
Lecture Notes in Computer Science: FSTTCS 2006: Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science
Volume
4337
Start Page
393
Last Page
404
DOI
10.1007/11944836_36
Copyright/Permission Statement
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
Date Posted: 26 June 2012
Comments
From the 26th International Conference, Kolkata, India, December 13-15, 2006.