  Assuming that a horizontal abelian (gauge) symmetry is at the origin of
texture zeros in the fermion mass matrices we show how realistic mass patterns
can be generated in the presence of scalar fields whose vacuum expectation
value breaks the extra $U(1)$ symmetry. In the simplest scenario with just one
pair of singlet fields and under the assumption of L-R symmetry one obtains
quark mass matrices {\it \`a la Fritzsch}. The $U(1)$ symmetry can be made
anomaly free by the Green-Schwarz mechanism in which case the canonical
unification of the gauge couplings emerges as its byproduct. The generation of
neutrino masses requires either two extra heavy scalar (Higgs) fields to
determine the texture structure of the righthanded neutrino mass matrix or the
latter will contain a hierarchy of scales.
