Una gramática formal es una estructura matemática con un conjunto de reglas de formación que definen las cadenas de caracteres admisibles en un determinado lenguaje formal o lengua natural. Las gramáticas formales aparecen en varios contextos diferentes: la lógica matemática, las ciencias de la computación y la lingüística teórica, frecuentemente con métodos e intereses divergentes. En un lenguaje formal, a las cadenas formadas según las reglas de la gramática formal se las llama fórmulas bien formadas, y el conjunto de todas las fórmulas bien formadas constituye un lenguaje formal. Una gramática formal no describe el significado de las fórmulas bien formadas, sino solamente su forma. La teoría de los lenguajes formales estudia las gramáticas formales y los lenguajes formales, y es una rama de la matemática aplicada. Sus aplicaciones se encuentran en la ciencia computacional teórica, la lingüística, la semántica formal, la lógica matemática y otras áreas.

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In formal language theory, a grammar (when the context is not given, often called a formal grammar for clarity) is a set of production rules for strings in a formal language. The rules describe how to form strings from the language's alphabet that are valid according to the language's syntax. A grammar does not describe the meaning of the strings or what can be done with them in whatever context—only their form. Formal language theory, the discipline which studies formal grammars and languages, is a branch of applied mathematics. Its applications are found in theoretical computer science, theoretical linguistics, formal semantics, mathematical logic, and other areas. A formal grammar is a set of rules for rewriting strings, along with a "start symbol" from which rewriting starts. Therefore, a grammar is usually thought of as a language generator. However, it can also sometimes be used as the basis for a "recognizer"—a function in computing that determines whether a given string belongs to the language or is grammatically incorrect. To describe such recognizers, formal language theory uses separate formalisms, known as automata theory. One of the interesting results of automata theory is that it is not possible to design a recognizer for certain formal languages.Parsing is the process of recognizing an utterance (a string in natural languages) by breaking it down to a set of symbols and analyzing each one against the grammar of the language. Most languages have the meanings of their utterances structured according to their syntax—a practice known as compositional semantics. As a result, the first step to describing the meaning of an utterance in language is to break it down part by part and look at its analyzed form (known as its parse tree in computer science, and as its deep structure in generative grammar).

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