The earlier Paninian tradition on the imperceptible sign

The aim of the contribution is to prove that the lopa-device must be put in the wider framework of substitution in order to understand all its features and account for its potentialities. Substitution is the blocking of an otherwise automatically involved (prasakta, a term formed from the same basis as prasaṅga) element through another element specifically taught that ‘takes its place’. Yet, the functions the new element carries out are exactly those of the absent element, and this is true even when the substitute specifically taught has no phonic realisation. Again, it is the role of the organized space (here the language system in its totality) that arises as a crucial prerequisite to make absence as much significant as presence.