Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2005
We consider shifted equality sets of the form EG(a,g1,g2) = {ω | g1(ω) = ag2(ω)}, where g1 and g2 are nonerasing morphisms and a is a letter. We are interested in the family consisting of the languages h(EG(J)), where h is a coding and (EG(J)) is a shifted equality set. We prove several closure properties for this family. Moreover, we show that every recursively enumerable language L ⊆ A* is a projection of a shifted equality set, that is, L = πA(EG(a,g1,g2)) for some (nonerasing) morphisms g1 and g2 and a letter a, where πA deletes the letters not in A. Then we deduce that recursively enumerable star languages coincide with the projections of equality sets.