On Generalized Epi-Projective Modules

A module M is said to be generalized N-projective (or N-dual ojective) if, for any epimorphism g : N → X and any homomorphism f : M → X, there exist decompositions M = M1 ⊕ M2, N = N1 ⊕ N2, a homomorphism h1 : M1 → N1 and an epimorphism h2 : N2 → M2 such that g ◦ h1 = f|M1 and f ◦ h2 = g|N2 . This relative projectivity is very useful for the study on direct sums of lifting modules (cf. [5], [7]). In the definition, it should be noted that we may often consider the case when f to be an epimorphism. By this reason, in this paper we define relative (strongly) generalized epi-projective modules and show several results on this generalized epi-projectivity. We apply our results to the known problem when finite direct sums M1⊕· · ·⊕Mn of lifting modules Mi (i = 1, · · · , n) is lifting.