The Partial Clone of Linear Tree Languages

Abstract

A term, also called a tree, is said to be linear, if each variable occurs in the term only once. The linear terms and sets of linear terms, the so-called linear tree languages, play some role in automata theory and in the theory of formal languages in connection with recognizability. We define a partial superposition operation on sets of linear trees of a given type τ and study the properties of some many-sorted partial clones that have sets of linear trees as elements and partial superposition operations as fundamental operations. The endomorphisms of those algebras correspond to nondeterministic linear hypersubstitutions.