[...] we can further deduce, especially for use in textual analysis, the following principle, which we call the ‘principle of exhaustive description’: ‘Any analysis (or analysis-complex) in which functives are registered with a given function as basis of analysis shall be so made that it leads self-consistently to the registration of the highest possible number of realized functival categories within the highest possible number of functional categories'.
- Hjelmslev (1961), a pag.97