Prolegomena teoriji jezika

Striving to create a mathematically rigorous and exact language theory, already in 1935, together with his colleague H.J. Uldall, he announced and established in basic principles the general and structural theory of language, glossematics, as a deductive theory according to mathematical models. He systematically presented this theory in the book On the Basics of Language Theory (Omkring sprogteoriens grundlægning, 1943, translated here as Prolegomena to the Theory of Language, 1980) and a little later in a more concise form in the book Language (Sproget, 1963), and refined and explained in detail in numerous studies and articles. Continuing, developing and more strictly understanding Saussure's basic principles, Hjelmslev emphasizes the dichotomous opposition between the level of expression and the level of content in language (with a distinct interest in the latter).