Banach Spaces Generated by Finite-Valued Functions: Superreflexive Rigidity, Hankel Operators, and Universality

Abstract

We investigate Banach spaces generated by uniformly bounded families of functions taking values in a fixed finite set and establish a rigidity principle connecting the cardinality of the generating family with the geometry of its closed linear span. We prove that such a space is superreflexive precisely when the generating family is finite, or equivalently, when the resulting Banach space is finite-dimensional. The main ingredient is a finite-range spreading-model obstruction showing that an infinite family of finite-valued functions cannot generate a superreflexive space under the supremum norm. This principle is applied to Banach spaces generated by the characteristic functions of the left derivatives of formal languages. It yields geometric characterizations of regular languages in terms of finite dimensionality, superreflexivity, and the existence of an equivalent uniformly convex norm. We also obtain a canonical representation of the associated language space as a coordinate-function subspace of a space of continuous functions on a compact shift-orbit closure. The corresponding language Hankel operator is shown to be compact exactly for regular languages. In the nonregular case, we determine its exact distance from both the compact and finite-rank operators and compute all its nontrivial approximation numbers. Finally, we construct a single binary language whose associated Banach space contains an isometric copy of every separable real Banach space. These results reveal a sharp contrast between the geometric rigidity associated with regular languages and the universality that may occur in the nonregular setting.