It is therefore of practical importance [...] to make use of a special ‘principle of generalization’. [...] It goes as follows: ‘If one object admits of a solution univocally, and another object admits of the same solution equivocally, then the solution is generalized to be valid for the equivocal object’. The rule that applies to the reductions here discussed can accordingly be formulated as follows: ‘Entities which, on application of the principle of generalization, may be univocally registered as complex units including only elements registered in the same operation, must not be registered as elements’. This rule is then to be applied in the content plane in just the same way as in the expression plane.
- Hjelmslev (1961), Pag. 69-70