Zero-marking in English

Zero-marking in English is the indication of a particular grammatical function by the absence of any morpheme (word, prefix, or suffix). The most common types of zero-marking in English involve zero articles, zero relative pronouns, and zero subordinating conjunctions. Examples are I like cats in which the absence of the definite article, the, signals cats to be an indefinite reference, whose specific identity is not known to the listener; that's the cat I saw in which the relative clause (that) I saw omits the implied relative pronoun, that, which would otherwise be the object of the clause's verb; and I wish you were here. in which the dependent clause, (that) you were here, omits the subordinating conjunction, that.

In some varieties of English, grammatical information that would be typically expressed in other English varieties by grammatical function words or bound morpheme may be omitted. For example, most varieties of English use explicit plural morphemes (singular mango and plural mangoes), West Indian creole languages refer to plural objects without such morphology (I find one dozen mango.).^[1]

The lack of marking to show grammatical category or agreement is known as zero-marking or zero morpheme realization.^[2] That information is typically expressed with prepositions, articles, bound morphemes or function words in other varieties of English.