Masses, mixings, Yukawa couplings and their symmetries

We present a method to find the number of real and imaginary observable parameters coming from the Yukawa sector in an arbitrary gauge theory. The method leads naturally to a classification of Yukawa couplings according to their symmetries and suggests a new parametrization of masses and mixings that is useful to study the behaviour of Yukawa couplings under the renormalization group. We apply it to some examples based on the Standard Model with Yukawa couplings obeying various chiral symmetries. We also show how our method of parameter counting can be used in some models with an enlarged leptonic sector.