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We now present a formal language with which we can write tree descriptions. This is the language of Dominance Constraints with Set Operators as described in [DN00]. It has the following abstract syntax:
 where variables 
 denote nodes and 
. 
 represents proper dominance and 
 disjointness. The constraint 
 is satisfied when the relationship that holds between 
 and 
 is one in 
. Thus 
 is satisfied either when 
 and 
 are equal, or when they denote nodes in disjoint subtrees. We write 
 instead of 
 and generally omit braces when we can write a single symbol.
Consider again the scope ambiguity example:

It can be expressed as the following dominance constraint:
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