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§6.2.2 Behaviorally Correct Language Identification
The next definition liberalizes the stability requirement for TxtEx just as we did for Ex.
6.21 Definition (Osherson and Weinstein [143], Case and Lynes [33]) Let 0140-001.gif.
(a) M TxtBca-identifies L (written: 0140-002.gif) just in case, for all texts T for L, for all but finitely many n, WM(T[n]) =a L.
(b) 0140-003.gif.
(c) TxtBc0 is abbreviated to TxtBc.
Thus a scientist M TxtBca-identifies language L just in case M, fed any text for L, produces an infinite sequence of hypotheses, all but finitely many of which are for a-variants of L. Successive conjectures need not be identical, nor even for the same language; and different texts may lead to different sequences.
The definition gives rise to a strict hierarchy, as described in the following corollary. Its proof follows a modification of the proof of Proposition 6.13 and is left for the reader. A different proof for this can be obtained using Proposition 6.24 below.
6.22 Corollary0140-004.gif.
In the case of functions, Propositions 6.9 and 6.10 reveal that Bc properly contains Ex*. Is the situation similar when we pass to TxtBc and TxtEx*? The following proposition shows that the latter paradigms are in fact incomparable.
6.23 Proposition(a) 0140-005.gif.
(b) 0140-006.gif.
Proof: Part (a) is an immediate consequence of Proposition 6.10. Part (b) is taken up in Exercise 6-9.
The above proposition shows that the instability allowed in TxtBc fails to compensate for the finite, but unbounded, number of errors allowed in TxtEx*. A subtler picture emerges when we consider bounded numbers of errors, as embodied in the criteria TxtExm.

 
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