 Just as with the sign, not every characteristic of the object is relevant to signification: only certain features of an object enable a sign to signify it. For Peirce, the relationship between the object of a sign and the sign that represents it is one of determination: the object determines the sign. Peirce’s notion of determination is by no means clear and it is open to interpretation, but for our purposes, it is perhaps best understood as the placing of constraints or conditions on successful signification by the object, rather than the object causing or generating the sign. The idea is that the object imposes certain parameters that a sign must fall within if it is to represent that object. However, only certain characteristics of an object are relevant to this process of determination. To see this in terms of an example, consider again the case of the molehill.