Terminal and nonterminal symbols

The string "the dog ate the bone" was created using production rules that replaced non-terminal with terminal symbols.[1]

In formal languages, terminal and nonterminal symbols are the lexical elements used in specifying the production rules constituting a formal grammar. Terminal symbols are the elementary symbols of the language defined as part of a formal grammar. Nonterminal symbols (or syntactic variables) are replaced by groups of terminal symbols according to the production rules.

The terminals and nonterminals of a particular grammar are in two completely separate sets.

  1. ^ Rosen, K. H. (2012). Discrete mathematics and its applications. McGraw-Hill. pages 847-851