The Complexity of Szilard Languages of Matrix Grammars Revisited
The regulated rewriting mechanism is one of the most efficient methods to augment the Chomsky hierarchy with a large variety of language classes. In this paper we investigate the derivation mechanism in regulated rewriting grammars such as matrix grammars, by studying their Szilard languages. We focus on the complexity of Szilard languages associated with unrestricted and leftmost-like derivations in matrix grammars, with or without appearance checking. The reason is twofold. First, to relate these classes of languages to parallel complexity classes such as NC1 and AC(1), and, second, to improve some previous results. We prove that unrestricted Szilard languages and certain leftmost Szilard languages of context-free matrix grammars, without appearance checking, can be accepted by indexing alternating Turing machines in logarithmic time and space. Consequently, these classes are included in U-E*-uniform NC1. Unrestricted Szilard languages of matrix grammars with appearance checking can be accepted by deterministic Turing machines in O(n log n) time and O(log n) space. Leftmost-like Szilard languages of context-free matrix grammars, with appearance checking, can be recognized by nondeterministic Turing machines by using the same time and space resources. Hence, all these classes are included in AC(1).
szilard languages matrix grammars (alternating) turing machines nc1 and ac(1) complexity classes