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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2008
In this paper we use Thurston's work on the dynamics of diffeomorphisms on surfaces to show that a diffeomorphism ƒ on a surface is isotopic to a Morse- Smale one if and only if the growth rate of the length of the words representing elements of the fundamental group under iteration by ƒ is one. Morse-Smale isotopy classes are also shown to be the same as Nielsen's algebraically finite type.