1 Besides presenting rather free-wheeling mathematical arguments which the mathematically unsophisticated reader will not be prepared for, the authors use such terms as “cartesian product” (introduced p. 29), the “sieve of Eratosthanes” (p. 45), “predicates and universal quantifiers” (p. 157), “remainder mod 3” (p. 145), “ring and semi-ring” (pp. 145ff.), without either definition or explanation.

2 Particularly irritating is the fact that there is a lack of backward and forward references and no index. For example, on p. 131 the authors say, “We shall note only that [a certain] result is valid for the languages of Schutzenberger…,” and state a theorem involving ‘algebraic languages’ and ‘rational languages.’ This reviewer made a fruitless search of pp. 1-130 for these terms, and then only later found that algebraic languages are discussed in detail for the first time on p. 196, and rational languages on p. 207.

3 See the Foreward for the authors’ admission and the Bibliography for a pre-1967 list of the standard references.

4 I.e., before the advent of Aspects of the Theory of Syntax by Noam Chomsky in 1965 (Published by M.I.T. Press).