This paper studies the growths of endomorphisms of finitely generated semigroups. The growth is a certain dynamical characteristic describing how iterations of the endomorphism ‘stretch’ balls in the Cayley graph of the semigroup. We make a detailed study of the relation of the growth of an endomorphism of a finitely generated semigroup and the growth of the restrictions of the endomorphism to finitely generated invariant subsemigroups. We also study the possible values endomorphism growths can attain. We show the role of linear algebra in calculating the growths of endomorphisms of homogeneous semigroups. Proofs are a mixture of syntactic algebraic rewriting techniques and analytical tricks. We state various problems and suggestions for future research.

Non-degenerate monoids of skew type are considered. This is a class of monoids S defined by n generators and quadratic relations of certain type, which includes the class of monoids yielding set-theoretic solutions of the quantum Yang–Baxter equation, also called binomial monoids (or monoids of I-type with square-free defining relations). It is shown that under any degree-lexicographic order on the associated free monoid FMn. of rank n the set of normal forms of elements of S is a regular language in FMn. As one of the key ingredients of the proof, it is shown that an identity of the form xN yN = yN xN holds in S. The latter is derived via an investigation of the structure of S viewed as a semigroup of matrices over a field. It also follows that the semigroup algebra K[S] is a finite module over a finitely generated commutative subalgebra of the form K[A] for a submonoid A of S.

The pseudovariety $\mathbf{DG}$ of all finite monoids all of whose regular $\mathcal{D}$-classes are subgroups is shown to be local, that is, it is verified that the pseudovariety $g\mathbf{DG}$ of finite categories generated by $\mathbf{DG}$ coincides with the pseudovariety $\ell\mathbf{DG}$ of all finite categories whose local monoids all belong to $\mathbf{DG}$. Yet more general statements of this kind are deduced, yielding results such as that, for every prime number $p$, the pseudovariety $\mathbf{DG}_p$ of all finite monoids all of whose regular $\mathcal{D}$-classes are $p$-groups is local, or that the pseudovarieties $\mathbf{DG}_{\mathrm{sol}}$ and $\mathbf{DG}_{\mathrm{nil}}$ of all finite monoids all of whose regular \mbox{$\mathcal{D}$-classes} are, respectively, solvable groups and nilpotent groups are local.

We define a notion of conjugacy in singular Artin moniods, and solve the corresponding conjugacy problem for finite types. We sgiw that this definition is appropriate to describe type (1) singular Markov moves on singular braids. Parabolic submonoids of singular Artin monoids are defined and, in finite type, are shown to be singular Artin monoids. Solutions to conjugacy-type problems of parabolic submonoids are described. Geometric objects defined by Fenn, Rolfsen and Zhu, called (j, k)-bands, are algebraically characterised, and a procedure is given which determines when a word represents a (j, k)-band.

Properties such as automaticity, growth and decidability are investigated for the class of finitely generated semigroups which have regular sets of unique normal forms. Knowledge obtained is then applied to the task of demonstrating that a class of semigroups derived from free inverse semigroups under certain closure operations is not automatic.