Grammar, why the formal language?

In formal language theory, a grammar consists of

• A set of characters (terminal symbols), the alphabet of the language
• A set of variables (non-terminal symbols)
• A non-terminal symbol (the start symbol or variable)
• A set of productions or rules consisting of pairs of finite strings, where the strings consist of terminal and non-terminal symbols and the first string (the left-hand side) contains at least one non-terminal symbol

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