  A group is combable if it can be represented by a language of words
satisfying a fellow traveller property; an automatic group has a synchronous
combing which is a regular language. This paper gives a systematic analysis of
the properties of groups with combings in various formal language classes, and
of the closure properties of the associated classes of groups. It generalises
previous work, in particular of Epstein et al. and Bridson and Gilman.
