The question of the nonuniqueness of phonemic solutions, first raised by Chao in 1934, remains one of the most intriguing problems of structural linguistics. It is therefore of interest to note that the attempts of various American and European linguists to arrive at a structural analysis of the nonsyllabic phonemes of present-day standard Bulgarian have resulted in three significantly different descriptions of the system in question. The phonemic inventory most frequently advocated, henceforth referred to as system I, includes (1) a series of hard, nonpalatalized, or plain consonants /p b t d k g f v s z x c m n r l/; (2) a series of corresponding soft, palatalized, or sharp consonants /p' b' t' d' k' g' f' v' s' z' x' c' m' n' r' 1'/; and (3) a glide or nonconsonantal-nonvocalic phoneme /j/. System II, less frequently encountered, admits only groups (1) and (3) as independent phonemes, and regards the palatalized consonants as clusters of consonant plus /j/. System III recognizes the phonemic status of (1) and (2), but considers [j] an allophone of unstressed /i/.