An important concept in formal language theory that underlies the notion of a grammar. It was defined and investigated by Axel Thue from about 1904. A semi-Thue system over the alphabet Σ is a finite set of ordered pairs of Σ-words:
Each pair 〈
li,
ri〉 is a rule, referred to as a
production, with
left-hand side li and
right-hand side ri; it is usually written
Let
u and
v be Σ-words, and
l →
r be a production, then the word
ulv is said to
directly derive the word
urv; this is written
So
w directly derives
w′ if
w′ is the result of applying a production to some substring of
w. if
then
w1 is said to
derive wn; this is written
So
w derives
w′ if
w′ is obtained from
w by a sequence of direct derivations.
As one example, let Σ be {a,b} and let the productions be
then
aabba derives
baaab by the sequence
It is clear that
w derives any permutation of
w.
As a second example, with productions
w derives Λ (the empty word) if and only if
w has the same number of
as as
bs.
The question of whether w derives w′ is algorithmically undecidable.