One of the main concept of traditional formal language theory is the notion of grammar, which can describe an infinite object, despite being finite. When the classical theory of formal grammars was elaborated, both the abstract and the real computational devices were centralised and based on the use of one processor only. By developments in computations, by the widespread use of parallel architectures and parallel processing a new approach has been raised in formal language theory as well which intends to study devices made up from independent components working together in order to generate a language.
Grammar systems theory defines languages through finite collections of formal grammars, cooperating and communicating with each other. In this dissertation the eco-grammar system model is investigated, which also provides a formal framework for describing emergent computation. This approach is aimed to obtain a better understanding of the properties of emergent systems by giving a theoretical basis for studying them.
In the following, first we review some fields of grammar systems theory and present the general ideas motivating them, emphasising those models and features which lead towards eco-grammar systems. Then we present our subject and summarise the results of our work.