Relations have played an indispensable role in establishing the principles for which modern semiotics is largely known. From a preliminary review of Peirce's early philosophical treatises and Saussure's sociopsychological insights, it is shown that these foundational semiotic theories that birthed a generation of four notable semioticians rely on an ontology of relations that warrants serious discussion. While the focus of semiotic inquiry has long been characterized by signs, sign systems and semiosis, the argument put forth here involves placing more significance on the concept of relations in semiotic theory. In short, this paper submits that an ontology of relations is an essential formulation for the basics of semiotic theory and therefore a thorough investigation of relations in and of themselves is justified; indeed the six major semiotic theories outlined in this paper suggest that the fundamental concepts of signs and semiosis depend on an ontology of relations to such an extent that relations present themselves as critical to understanding semiotic phenomena on a deeper level. This study therefore hopes to spark meaningful dialogue by proposing that the object of semiotic inquiry includes relations in their own right.