ON RESTRICTING SUBSETS OF BASES IN RELATIVELY FREE GROUPS

Abstract

Let G be a finitely generated free, free abelian of arbitrary exponent, free nilpotent, or free solvable group, or a free group in the variety AmAn, and let A = {a1,…, ar} be a basis for G. We prove that, in most cases, if S is a subset of a basis for G which may be expressed as a word in A without using elements from {al+1,…, ar} for some l < r, then S is a subset of a basis for the relatively free group on {a1,…, al}.