This volume presents methods of research used in descriptive, or, more complex exactly, structural, linguistics. It is thus a discussion of the operations which the linguist may carry out in the course of his investigations, rather than a theory of the structural analyses which result from these investigations. The research methods are arranged here in the form of the successive procedures of analysis imposed by the working linguist upon his data.
- Harris (1951), a pag.1

Other methods can be suggested, for example one based upon relations of selection among segments, whether phonemic or morphemic.
- Harris (1951), a pag.2

In order to be consistent in the reduction of linguistic methods to procedures, there are here offered procedures even for those steps where linguists traditionally use hit-or-miss or intuitive techniques to arrive at a system which works to a first approximation, but which greater difficulty—and greater rigor—be arrived at procedurally. Examples of cumbersome but explicit procedures offered here in place of the simpler intuitive practice are: the stresses upon distribution rather than meaning in setting up the morphemes; and the deferring of morphophonemics until after the morpheme alternants have been fully stated.
- Harris (1951), a pag.3

[…] various languages described in terms of these procedures can be the more readily compared for structural difference,since any differences between their descriptions will not be due to differences in method used by the linguists, but to differences in how the language data responded to identical methods of arrangement.
- Harris (1951), a pag.3

The fact that the determination of elements is relative to the other elements of the language means that all such determining is performed for each language independently. All lists of elements, relations among them, and statements about them are applicable only to the particular language for which they are made. The research methods of the linguist may be roughly similar for many languages, but the statements that result from his work apply in each case to the language in question.
- Harris (1951), a pag.8, n.6

In both the phonologic and the morphologic analyses the linguist then investigates the distributional relations among the elements. This task can be made simpler by carrying it out in successive operations such as those procedurally described here. In those cases where the procedure seems more complicated than the usual intuitive method (often based on the criterion of meaning) of obtaining the same results, the reason for the more complex procedure is the demand of rigor.
- Harris (1951), a pag.8

All lists of elements, relations among them, and statements about them are applicable only to the particular language for which they are made. The research methods of the linguist may be roughly similar for many languages, but the statements that result from his work apply in each case to the language in question.
- Harris (1951), a pag.8, n.6

It therefore does not matter for basic descriptive method whether the system for a particular language is so devised as to have the least number of elements (e.g. phonemes), or the least number of statements about them,or the greatest over-all compactness, etc.
- Harris (1951), a pag.9, n.8