Inferential and counter-inferential grammatical markers in Swahili dialogue

Naturally occurring dialogue is by far the most frequent manifestation of human speech and therefore has a legitimate claim to being regarded as a prime object of study in the sciences of language. Looking at the factors which determine the structure of natural dialogue, one cannot escape the conclusion that not only what is being said but also what is being inferred from what is said contributes towards determining the sequence and content of moves as well as the choice of grammatical features which are crucial for dialogue cohesion and for the interpretation of utterances in dialogue: `Constellations of surface features of message form are the means by which speakers signal and listeners interpret what the activity is, how semantic content is to be understood and how each sentence relates to what precedes follows.