Making Finite-State Methods Applicable to Languages Beyond Context-Freeness via Multi-dimensional Trees

Abstract

We provide a new term-like representation for multi-dimensional trees as defined by Rogers [1,2] which establishes them as a direct generalization of classical trees. As a consequence these structures can be used as input for finite-state applications based on classical term-based tree language theory. Via the correspondence between string and tree languages these applications can then be conceived to be able to process even some language classes beyond context-freeness.