摘要：For more than half a century,finite-state methods and mathematical linguistics have benefitted from a close relation and fruitful interaction. Both research fields aim to achieve a deeper understand_ing of human language by means of mathematical techniques. For the automated processing of language by computers such a mathematical basis is an indispensable prerequisite. Historically,the goal pursued by mathematical linguists to formalize natural language syntax in a computer-accessible way was one of the strongest driving forces be_hind the development of finite-state methods. Thus,it is no exaggera?tion to say that the field of finite-state methods owes its existence to a large extent to mathematical linguistics. In turn,continued research on finite-state methods has resulted in a categorization of various kinds of language classes and language aspects,together with efficient and provably correct algorithms,thus expanding our understanding of the mathematical properties of language.
