Which of the following describes a handle (as applicable to LR-parsing...
Let's first understand the terminology used here. LR Parsing - Here 'L' stands for Left to Right screening of input string, and 'R' stands for Right Most Derivation in Reverse (because it is about bottom-up parsing). Sentential Form - Suppose For a given Context Free Grammar G, we have a start symbol S, then to define Language generated by Grammar G, i.e. L(G), we start the derivation starting from S using the production rules of the grammar. After one complete derivation we get a string w which consists of only terminal symbols, i.e. w belongs to L(G). Then we can say that w is a sentence of the Grammar G. Now, while the derivation process, if it gets some form q, where q may contain some Non-terminal then we say that q is a sentential form of the Grammar G. Even the start symbol S is also the sentential form of the Grammar G (because it also contains Non-terminal S).
For Ex :
Grammar is :
S-> aAcBe
A->Ab|b
B->d
Input string : abbcde
Derivation : (Top-Down, Right Most Derivation)
S->aAcBe
->aAcde
->aAbcde
->abbcde
Here {abbcde} is the sentence of the Grammar(because it contains only terminal symbols), and {S, aAcBe, aAcde, aAbcde} are the sentential forms of the G (because these forms contain non-terminals during the derivation process) Now, let's look at the question. The question is related to LR parsing which is a bottom-up parsing. Let's take the same grammar above, as it is a bottom up parsing we need to start from the string "abbcde" and try to get S using production rules.
: abbcde
->aAbcde (using A-> b)
->aAcde (using A-> Ab)
->aAcBe (using B -> d)
->S (using S-> aAcBe)
The above process is called reduction. The RHS of the Production which is being replaced by their LHS is called Handle, So , { b, Ab, d, aAcBe} are handles, and replacing it with its LHS is called Handle-Pruning. Hence option D suits best.