[...] the important thing is not the division of an object into parts, but the conduct of the analysis so that it conforms to the mutual dependences between these parts, and permits us to give an adequate account of them [...] both the object under examination and its parts have existence only by virtue of these dependences; the whole of the object under examination can be defined only by their sum total; and each of its parts can be defined only by the dependences joining it to other coordinated parts, to the whole, and to its parts of the next degree, and by the sum of the dependences that these parts of the next degree contract with each other [...] That is to say, objects can be described only with their help and can be defined and grasped scientifically only in this way.
- Hjelmslev (1961), Pag. 22-23

In addition to interdependences, we must foresee unilateral dependences, where the one term presupposes the other but not ‘vice versa’, and further, freer dependences that consist in two terms’ not entering into any relationship of presupposition but still being compatible (in the process or in the system), and thus differing from still another set of terms, those that are incompatible.
- Hjelmslev (1961), Pag. 24

The mutual dependences, in which the one term presupposes the other and ‘vice versa’, we shall call conventionally ‘interdependences’. The unilateral dependences, in which the one term presupposes the other but not ‘vice versa’, we call ‘determinations’. And the freer dependences, in which two terms are compatible but neither presupposes the other, we call ‘constellations’.
- Hjelmslev (1961), Pag. 24