  Borcherds algebras represent a new class of Lie algebras which have almost
all the properties that ordinary Kac-Moody algebras have, and the only major
difference is that these generalized Kac-Moody algebras are allowed to have
imaginary simple roots. The simplest nontrivial examples one can think of are
those where one adds ``by hand'' one imaginary simple root to an ordinary
Kac-Moody algebra. We study the fundamental representation of this class of
examples and prove that an irreducible module is given by the full tensor
algebra over some integrable highest weight module of the underlying Kac-Moody
algebra. We also comment on possible realizations of these Lie algebras in
physics as symmetry algebras in quantum field theory.
