Notation and Formal Language Theory
Richard Bornat · 1979
The theory of formal languages, so far as it is applicable to compiler writing, covers only issues of syntax : it describes those arrangements of symbols which constitute executable (runnable) programs in a programming language. It isn’t concerned at all with the semantics of those programs: what they ‘mean’ or what will be the effect when you run them. Sections II and III above assume an intuitive understanding of the semantics of languages such as PASCAL, FORTRAN, ALGOL 60 or ALGOL 68 and that’s as far as this book goes in the discussion of programming language semantics.