# Does adding S->SS in a context-free grammar change the language to its Kleene star?

Let $L$ be the language generated by a context-free grammar whose start variable is $S$. Does adding $S \rightarrow SS$ in this grammar creating language $L^*$, why? What about grammars in Chomsky normal form?

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– Raphael
Jun 13, 2018 at 20:31
• Mind the empty word.
– chi
Jun 14, 2018 at 12:46

As chi pointed out in the comment, since $\varepsilon\in L^*$ and $\varepsilon$ may not belong to the new grammar, so adding $S\rightarrow SS$ does not always generate $L^*$. It makes more sense to ask whether it generates $L^+$, so the following answer focuses on $L^+$.

# General Form

Consider the following grammar:

\begin{align} S&\rightarrow aSb\\ S&\rightarrow \varepsilon \end{align}

It generates the language $L=\{a^nb^n\mid n\in\mathbb{N}\}$.

Now after adding $S\rightarrow SS$ in this grammar, the string $aababb$ can be generated by the grammar but it does not belong to $L^+$.

# Chomsky Normal Form

Easy to see $L^+$ can be generated by the new grammar. Now for any string $s$ generated by the new grammar, we can prove $s\in L^+$ by mathematical induction on the depth of its parse tree. Consider the derivation process of $s$.

If the first derivation does not use the rule $S\rightarrow SS$, we can conclude $S$ does not show up in the following derivation since $S$ does not show up in the right hand side of a CFG of Chomsky normal form. As a result, $s\in L$.

If the first derivation uses the rule $S\rightarrow SS$, the strings generated respectively by the two $S$'s in the right hand side must belong to $L^+$ due to inductive assumption, thus $s$, which is formed by concatenating the two strings, also belongs to $L^+$.

• The last proof only proves that $L(G \cup \{S\to SS\}) \subseteq L(G)^*$. The converse inclusion looks false, in general, e.g. when $G=\{S\to a\}$.
– chi
Jun 15, 2018 at 12:55
• @chi Isn't $L(G)^*=\{a\}^*\subseteq L(\{S\rightarrow SS, S\rightarrow a\})$? Jun 15, 2018 at 13:12
• No, since $\{a\}^* \not\subseteq \{a\}^+$. I think the only issue here is the empty word, and that using $L^+$ instead of $L^*$ should fix everything. So, I'm being a bit pedantic here :-P
– chi
Jun 15, 2018 at 13:53