Output string languages of compositions of deterministic macro tree transducers

Abstract

The composition of total deterministic macro tree transducers gives rise to a proper hierarchy with respect to their output string languages (these are the languages obtained by taking the yields of the output trees). There is a language not in this hierarchy which can be generated by a (quite restricted) nondeterministic string transducer, namely, a two-way generalized sequential machine. Similar results hold for attributed tree transducers, for controlled EDT0L systems, and for YIELD mappings (which proves properness of the IO-hierarchy). Witnesses for the properness of the macro tree transducer hierarchy can already be found in the latter three hierarchies. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).