“…However, the extension of the notion of phase, as understood in scalar systems, is not so straightforward. Several attempts have been made to define a multivariable phase, such as (Freudenberg & Looze, 1988;Hung & MacFarlane, 1982;MacFarlane & Hung, 1981;Postlethwaite et al, 1981). On the other hand, as (Wall et al, 1980) showed, transmission zeros contribute with extra phase lag in some directions, but not in others.…”