Abstract
The paper deals with star-free languages in free monoids and trace monoids. We introduce the notion of star-free star, fundamental for this paper, and show that the classes of star-free languages and star-free star languages coincide. Then, using this result, we obtain a general characterization of star-free trace languages, containing a result of Guaiana/Restivo/Salemi (star-free=aperiodic in trace monoids), originally proved in a more involved, combinatorial way.