On paratopological vector spaces

We show that each first countable paratopological vector space X has a compatible translation invariant quasi-metric such that the open balls are convex whenever X is a pseudoconvex vector space. We introduce the notions of a right-bounded subset and of a right-precompact subset of a paratopological vector space X and prove that X is quasi-normable if and only if the origin has a convex and right-bounded neighborhood. Duality in this context is also discussed. Furthermore, it is shown that the bicompletion of any paratopological vector space (respectively, of any quasi-metric vector space) admits the structure of a paratopological vector space (respectively, of a quasi-metric vector space). Finally, paratopological vector spaces of finite dimension are considered. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.