Formal Languages
A formal language consists of a fixed collection of sentences (also called words or formulas, depending on the context) composed from a fixed set of letters or symbols. The inventory from which these letters are taken is called the alphabet over which the language is defined. The essential feature of a formal language is that its syntax can be defined without reference to interpretation. We can determine that (P or Q) is a well-formed formula even without knowing whether it is true or false.
To distinguish the strings of symbols that are in a formal language from arbitrary strings of symbols, the former are sometimes called well-formed formulæ (wffs).
Read more about this topic: Interpretation (logic)
Famous quotes containing the words formal and/or languages:
“True variety is in that plenitude of real and unexpected elements, in the branch charged with blue flowers thrusting itself, against all expectations, from the springtime hedge which seems already too full, while the purely formal imitation of variety ... is but void and uniformity, that is, that which is most opposed to variety....”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“It is time for dead languages to be quiet.”
—Natalie Clifford Barney (1876–1972)