“Cognitive-Pragmatic Inference Across Typologies: Ellipsis and Silence in Kiswahili and English”.

Abstract

Cognitive-pragmatic inference plays a central role in interpreting ellipsis and silence across languages of differing typological profiles. Grounded in relevance theory and cross linguistic pragmatics, the present analysis investigates how meaning is inferred from implicit or unarticulated elements in Kiswahili and English discourse. Attention is given to the interaction between linguistic form, contextual enrichment, and communicative norms in shaping interpretive processes. Qualitative examination of conversational and textual data reveals that both languages employ comparable inferential mechanisms, yet diverge in their degrees of explicitness and dependence on context. Kiswahili, characterized by agglutinative morphology and high-context communication, often relies on pragmatic economy achieved through silence and elliptical constructions. English, as a more analytic and low-context language, tends toward syntactic explicitness and overt coherence markers to secure interpretation. The findings highlight the interplay between cognitive universals and typological variation in the management of implied meaning. By situating ellipsis and silence within a cognitive-pragmatic framework, the analysis contributes to broader theoretical discussions on how speakers negotiate meaning through what remains unsaid.