Permutation closure for multiple context-free languages

Abstract

We prove that the \emph{permutation closure} of a multiple context-free language is multiple context-free, which extends work of Okhotin and Sorokin [LATA 2020] who showed closure under \emph{cyclic shift}, and complements work of Brandstädt [1981, RAIRO Inform. Théor.] (resp. Brough \emph{et al.} [2016, Discrete Math. Theor. Comput. Sci.]) who showed the same result for regular, context-sensitive, recursively enumerable (resp. EDT0L and ET0L) languages. In contrast to Okhotin and Sorokin who work with grammars, our proof uses restricted tree stack automata due to Denkinger [DLT 2016].

20 pages, 5 figures