Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / ii / Paper 3 / 4H / a / Solution

A context-free grammar is in Chomsky normal form when every production is of one of the formswhere $A,B,C$ are nonterminal symbols and $a$ is a terminal symbol. Under this strict convention there is no epsilon production, so such a grammar cannot generate the empty word. Conversion of an arbitrary grammar therefore givesIf $ϵ\notin \mathcal{L}(G)$, the two languages are equal. An alternative extended convention permits the exceptional start production $S_0\to ϵ$; under that convention conversion preserves the whole language.