DEF/formal

Similar terms and concepts formal language formula mathematics mathematical

Can a language, notation, description method can be "more or less formal"? No. Formal is formal. But we can do our best.

Definition

DEF/formal

We call a language, notation, description method etc. formal if syntax and semantics are well defined and semantics maps expressions into a mathematical space.

Explanation

• Rationality

Relations with other concepts

• abstraction
• Formalisms can be translated to formalised natural language
• If syntax and semantix of a language are defined formally, the language is formal.

Pragmatics

• communication?
• abstraction!
• calculus, transformation!

Examples

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Open questions

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This is a definition from Taxonomy of Computer Science (Hanno Wupper et al. 2008).