We show that some results of L. Makar-Limanov, P. Malcolmson and Z. Reichstein on the existence of free-associative algebras are valid in the more general context of varieties of algebras.

For a finite Clifford inverse algebra $A$, with natural order meet-semilattice ${Y}_{A} $ and group of units ${G}_{A} $, we show that the inverse monoid obtained as the semidirect product ${ Y}_{A}^{1} {\mathop{\ast }\nolimits}_{\rho } {G}_{A} $ has a log-polynomial free spectrum whenever $\rho $ is a term-expressible left action of ${G}_{A} $ on ${Y}_{A} $ and all subgroups of $A$ are nilpotent. This yields a number of examples of finite inverse monoids satisfying the Seif conjecture on finite monoids whose free spectra are not doubly exponential.

For each k ≥ 2, we determine the asymptotic behaviour of the sequence of cardinalities of finitely generated free objects in , the variety consisting of all k-testable semigroups.

We give an asymptotic bound for the size of the n-generated relatively free semigroup in the variety generated by all combinatorial strictly 0-simple semigroups.

Free algebras with an arbitrary number of free generators in varieties of BL-algebras generated by one BL-chain that is an ordinal sum of a finite MV-chain Ln, and a generalized BL-chain B are described in terms of weak Boolean products of BL-algebras that are ordinal sums of subalgebras of Ln, and free algebras in the variety of basic hoops generated by B. The Boolean products are taken over the Stone spaces of the Boolean subalgebras of idempotents of free algebras in the variety of MV-algebras generated by Ln.

2000 Mathematics subject classification: primary 03G25, 03B50, 03B52, 03D35, 03G25, 08B20.

In this paper, the variety of three-valued closure algebras, that is, closure algebras with the property that the open elements from a three-valued Heyting algebra, is investigated. Particularly, the structure of the finitely generated free objects in this variety is determined.