Generalizing earlier results of Katriňák, El-Assar and the present author we prove new structure theorems for l-algebras. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the decomposition of an arbitrary bounded lattice into a direct product of (finitely) subdirectly irreducible lattices.

We give a new proof that a finitely generated congruence-distributive variety has finitely determined syntactic congruences (or, equivalently, term finite principal congruences), and show that the same does not hold for finitely generated congruence-permutable varieties, even underthe additional assumption that the variety is residually very finite.

Kublanovsky has shown that if a subvariety V of the variety RSn generated by completely 0-simple semigroups over groups of exponent n is itself generated by completely 0-simple semigroups, then it must satisfy one of three conditions: (i) A2 ∈ V; (ii) (iii) B2∈V but The conditions (i) and (ii) are also sufficient conditions. In this note, we complete Kublanovsky’s programme by refining condition (iii) to obtain a complete set of conditions that are both necessary and sufficient.

It is shown that if V is a congruence distributive variety whose members have one element subalgebras, then the class of absolute retracts of V is closed under direct products. If V is residually small, then a characterisation of the amalgamation class of V is given.