CSCI 119-02: Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata
Undergraduate course, California State University, Fresno, Department of Computer Science, 2026
Fall 2026. This theory-centered course studies formal models of computation and the proof techniques used to reason about them. It begins with strings, languages, and finite automata, then develops the relationships among automata, regular expressions, grammars, and computational models.
The course emphasizes precise definitions, written constructions, state diagrams, counterexamples, and proofs rather than programming assignments.
Core topics
- Deterministic and nondeterministic finite automata
- Regular languages, regular expressions, and closure properties
- Context-free grammars and pushdown automata
- Pumping arguments, Turing machines, and computability