The analysis is gradually expanded to the study of functions, more commonly known as dependencies, between elements on the level of discourse (which is called process), and between meaning and form in the linguistic system.
A similar idea was used by Leonard Bloomfield in describing his system of basic linguistic units, tagmemes, although glossematics is more far-reaching in each direction.
Hjelmslev was also influenced by the Prague Linguistic Circle to the extent that he considered full texts as the material for analysis rather than ‘utterances' as was commonplace in American structuralism.
Diverging from both American and European linguists, though, Hjelmslev considered language not as a social fact but as a computational system which underlies all sciences.
To the greatest extent possible, glossematics seeks to construct a non-historical, non-sociological and non-psychological model based on language-specific principles and minimal reliance on factors external to the system.
Rather than separate fields of study, Hjelmslev regarded phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicology and semantics as part of the same apparatus.
Instead, a linguist must study expression and content, the systematised organisation of form and meaning of a given language which is to be deduced from the research material.