Partial clones

Abstract

A set [Formula: see text] of operations defined on a nonempty set [Formula: see text] is said to be a clone if [Formula: see text] is closed under composition of operations and contains all projection mappings. The concept of a clone belongs to the algebraic main concepts and has important applications in Computer Science. A clone can also be regarded as a many-sorted algebra where the sorts are the [Formula: see text]-ary operations defined on set [Formula: see text] for all natural numbers [Formula: see text] and the operations are the so-called superposition operations [Formula: see text] for natural numbers [Formula: see text] and the projection operations as nullary operations. Clones generalize monoids of transformations defined on set [Formula: see text] and satisfy three clone axioms. The most important axiom is the superassociative law, a generalization of the associative law. If the superposition operations are partial, i.e. not everywhere defined, instead of the many-sorted clone algebra, one obtains partial many-sorted algebras, the partial clones. Linear terms, linear tree languages or linear formulas form partial clones. In this paper, we give a survey on partial clones and their properties.