‘The description shall be free of contradiction (self-consistent), exhaustive, and as simple as possible. The requirement of freedom from contradiction takes precedence over the requirement of exhaustive description. The requirement of exhaustive description takes precedence over the requirement of simplicity’. We venture to call this principle the ‘empirical principle’. [...] The assertion of our so-called empirical principle is not the same as an assertion of inductivism [...].
- Hjelmslev (1961), a pag.11

It is [...] by its own "empirical principle" and by it alone, that linguistic theory must be tested.
- Hjelmslev (1961), a pag.18