Accession Number:

AD0689305

Title:

A FORMAL SYSTEM FOR DEFINING THE SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS OF COMPUTER LANGUAGES.

Descriptive Note:

Doctoral thesis,

Corporate Author:

MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAMBRIDGE PROJECT MAC

Personal Author(s):

• Ledgard,Henry F.

Report Date:

1969-04-01

Pagination or Media Count:

206.0

Abstract:

The thesis of this dissertation is that formal definitions of the syntax and semantics of computer languages are needed. This dissertation investigates two candidates for formally defining computer languages 1 the formalism of canonical systems for defining the syntax of a computer language and its translation into a target language, and 2 the formalisms of the lambda-calculus and extended Markov algorithms as a combined formalism used as the basis of a target language for defining the semantics of a computer language. Formal definitions of the syntax and semantics of SNOBOL1 and ALGOL60 are included as examples of the approach. Author

Descriptors:

• (*PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
• *SYNTAX)
• (*SEMANTICS
• PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES)
• REAL TIME
• TIME SHARING
• MULTIPLE OPERATION
• ALGORITHMS
• THESES

Subject Categories:

• Linguistics
• Computer Programming and Software
• Computer Systems

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE