Automatic semigroups and categories. (Q2368995)

The author extends some theoretical results on automatic semigroups to automatic semigroupoids (and small categories). The basic combinatorial notions of generators and relations generalise via graphs and paths substituting for alphabets and words, respectively. The author introduces natural definitions of automaticity and prefix-automaticity in the framework of semigroupoids and explores their consequences. He shows that a semigroupoid is automatic or prefix-automatic if and only if some closely associated semigroup has the same property. As a consequence, he shows that the class of prefix-automatic semigroups is closed under the taking of cofinite subsemigroups, free products, and free factors.