On the zero-classes of monoid semi-congruences

This paper studies the zero-classes of monoid semi-congruences, understood as internal reflexive relations on a monoid. Classical examples include normal submonoids, which arise as zero-classes of congruences, and positive cones, which are the zero-classes of preorders; both admit well-known syntactic characterizations via the Eilenberg syntactic equivalence and the syntactic preorder introduced by Pin, respectively. Beyond these cases, however, no general notion of a syntactic object characterizing zero-classes of semi-congruences, also called clots, has been established. We address this gap by introducing a syntactic relation that is reflexive and characterizes clots whenever it is compatible with the monoid operation, a property that is not automatic in contrast to the congruence and preorder settings. We further develop a hierarchy of conditions on submonoids of a given monoid that induce syntactic relations with progressively stronger properties: first ensuring compatibility with the monoid operation, and subsequently enforcing additional relational properties such as transitivity and symmetry. Several illustrative situations are discussed, including the cases of positive cones and normal submonoids.