Index: lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/postingshighlight/TestPostingsHighlighter.java
===================================================================
--- lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/postingshighlight/TestPostingsHighlighter.java	(revision 1458557)
+++ lucene/highlighter/src/test/org/apache/lucene/search/postingshighlight/TestPostingsHighlighter.java	(working copy)
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 import java.io.BufferedReader;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Map;
 
 import org.apache.lucene.analysis.Analyzer;
@@ -547,4 +548,35 @@
     ir.close();
     dir.close();
   }
+
+  /** Make sure highlighter returns first N sentences if
+   *  there were no hits. */
+  public void testEmptyHighlights() throws Exception {
+    Directory dir = newDirectory();
+    IndexWriterConfig iwc = newIndexWriterConfig(TEST_VERSION_CURRENT, new MockAnalyzer(random()));
+    iwc.setMergePolicy(newLogMergePolicy());
+    RandomIndexWriter iw = new RandomIndexWriter(random(), dir, iwc);
+    
+    FieldType offsetsType = new FieldType(TextField.TYPE_STORED);
+    offsetsType.setIndexOptions(IndexOptions.DOCS_AND_FREQS_AND_POSITIONS_AND_OFFSETS);
+    Document doc = new Document();
+
+    Field body = new Field("body", "test this is.  another sentence this test has.  far away is that planet.", offsetsType);
+    doc.add(body);
+    iw.addDocument(doc);
+    
+    IndexReader ir = iw.getReader();
+    iw.close();
+    
+    IndexSearcher searcher = newSearcher(ir);
+    PostingsHighlighter highlighter = new PostingsHighlighter();
+    Query query = new TermQuery(new Term("body", "highlighting"));
+    int[] docIDs = new int[] {0};
+    String snippets[] = highlighter.highlightFields(new String[] {"body"}, query, searcher, docIDs, 2).get("body");
+    assertEquals(1, snippets.length);
+    assertEquals("test this is.  another sentence this test has.  ", snippets[0]);
+
+    ir.close();
+    dir.close();
+  }
 }
Index: lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/postingshighlight/PostingsHighlighter.java
===================================================================
--- lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/postingshighlight/PostingsHighlighter.java	(revision 1458557)
+++ lucene/highlighter/src/java/org/apache/lucene/search/postingshighlight/PostingsHighlighter.java	(working copy)
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.text.BreakIterator;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Comparator;
 import java.util.HashMap;
@@ -32,6 +33,7 @@
 import org.apache.lucene.index.AtomicReader;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.AtomicReaderContext;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.DocsAndPositionsEnum;
+import org.apache.lucene.index.FieldInfo.IndexOptions;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.FieldInfo;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexReader;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.IndexReaderContext;
@@ -41,7 +43,6 @@
 import org.apache.lucene.index.Term;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.Terms;
 import org.apache.lucene.index.TermsEnum;
-import org.apache.lucene.index.FieldInfo.IndexOptions;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.IndexSearcher;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.Query;
 import org.apache.lucene.search.ScoreDoc;
@@ -438,6 +439,10 @@
         }
         // if we exceed limit, we are done
         if (start >= contentLength) {
+          if (passageQueue.size() == 0) {
+            return getEmptyHighlight(bi, n);
+          }
+
           Passage passages[] = new Passage[passageQueue.size()];
           passageQueue.toArray(passages);
           for (Passage p : passages) {
@@ -476,8 +481,35 @@
       }
       current.score += weights[off.id] * scorer.tf(tf, current.endOffset - current.startOffset);
     }
-    return new Passage[0];
+
+    // nocommit is this right?
+
+    // Dead code but compiler disagrees:
+    assert false;
+    return null;
   }
+
+  /** Called when we found 0 passages; this just returns
+   *  first n sentences. */
+  private Passage[] getEmptyHighlight(BreakIterator bi, int n) {
+    // BreakIterator should be un-next'd:
+    assert bi.current() == 0;
+    List<Passage> passages = new ArrayList<Passage>();
+    while (passages.size() < n) {
+      // nocommit is this right!!
+      int current = bi.current();
+      int next = bi.next();
+      if (next == BreakIterator.DONE) {
+        break;
+      }
+      Passage passage = new Passage();
+      passage.startOffset = current;
+      passage.endOffset = next;
+      passages.add(passage);
+    }
+
+    return passages.toArray(new Passage[passages.size()]);
+  }
   
   private static class OffsetsEnum implements Comparable<OffsetsEnum> {
     DocsAndPositionsEnum dp;