The interval between the finitude of specifiable roles and the transfinitude of the play of initiative can be regarded as immense or infinitesimal. It is the step from quantity to quality. When the two realms 'collapse' into one, we have the 'ordinary state' of discourse. Our framework has to be elaborated to take into account the phenomenal basis of discourse, which requires us to actualise words in time. The linearity of the form of speech is a constraint that requires of us a selection of the actualisation process out of many alternatives.
People produce words one after the other and, more or less, have to speak one at a time.
In N-logue, therefore, we have to specify a procedure . This is an independent constraint from that of the roles, though the two are interconnected in the design of the form. On the qualitative side, we also have to take into account that the play of initiative is not gratuitous but arises in response to something, which something is already implicit in the formation of the group of people speaking together. The idea is that the people so engaged do not simply 'invent' the meaning of their meeting, but discover it as they speak together. This four-fold or tetradic model enables us to designate three distinct areas of experience and practice, relating to our research.