Abstract
The current article presents a proposal for extending certain regularities observed in the history of language to cover other areas of semiotics as well. Most importantly, the formula in question is crucial to psychological associations in general, and very significant in the cases when signs are influenced by material and functional context. The qualities characteristic of language, i.e. articulation and communicative function, as well as its conventional character create favorable starting-point conditions for this investigation, but, on the other hand, they are obscured in the general rule, which disregards both the material side of the sign and its special function.