Free products of near-rings and their modules (Q1091455)

Through the introduction of a ``strong partial'' R-module for a near-ring R, the author is able to obtain in one construction both the free product of two R-modules and the free R-module on a set X. Analogous results are developed for near-rings by defining a free (0-symmetric left) near-ring generated by a ``strong partial'' 0-symmetric near-ring. In both cases, only the non-unital case is considered. However modifications for the unital case are indicated. The final result is an application of this construction to extend the canonical adjunction of an identity for rings to that for near-rings. Of independent interest in this carefully presented article is the result that a non-trivial free R-module product and a non-trivial free R-module cannot be directly decomposed, the analog to the known group theoretic result.