Languages convex with respect to binary relations, and their closure properties

Abstract

A language is prefix-convex if it satisfies the condition that, if a word w and its prefix u are in the language, then so is every prefix of w that has u as a prefix. Prefix-convex languages include prefix-closed languages at one end of the spectrum, and prefix-free languages, which include prefix codes, at the other. In a similar way, we define suffix-, bifix-, factor-, and subword-convex languages and their closed and free counterparts. This provides a common framework for diverse languages such as codes, factorial languages and ideals. We examine the relationships among these languages. We generalize these notions to arbitrary binary relations on the set of all words over a given alphabet, and study the closure properties of such languages.