  We present a study of the connection between star-forming galaxies, AGN host
galaxies, and normal early-type galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS). Using the SDSS DR5 and DR4plus data, we select our early-type galaxy
sample in the color versus color-gradient space, and we classify the spectral
types of the selected early-type galaxies into normal, star-forming, Seyfert,
and LINER classes, using several spectral line flux ratios. We investigate the
slope in the fundamental space for each class of early-type galaxies and find
that there are obvious differences in the slopes of the fundamental planes
(FPs) among the different classes of early-type galaxies, in the sense that the
slopes for Seyferts and star-forming galaxies are flatter than those for normal
galaxies and LINERs. This may be the first identification of the systematic
variation of the FP slope among the subclasses of early-type galaxies. The
difference in the FP slope might be caused by the difference in the degree of
nonhomology among different classes or by the difference of gas contents in
their merging progenitors. One possible scenario is that the AGN host galaxies
and star-forming galaxies are formed by gas-rich merging and that they may
evolve into normal early-type galaxies after finishing their star formation or
AGN activities.
