AIMS: The primary goal of the presented research was to investigate the memory effects of implicit negation, conveyed using implicatures, as compared to explicit negation. We also speculated that implicit negation might require more cognitive effort.

METHODS: Three experiments were conducted (total N = 181), in which participants were presented with a description containing implicit or explicit negation, followed by a memory recognition test of items present, negated or not mentioned in the description. We manipulated the pace at which the description was presented (own pace vs. fixed) and whether participants were informed about the upcoming recognition test.

RESULTS: We found no differences between explicit and implicit negation in the number of false alarms to negated and not mentioned items, response times or time spent reading the source material. Bayesian analyses indicated a 90% probability that there were no differences in the number of false alarms between explicit and implicit negation.

CONCLUSIONS: Implicit and explicit negation lead to a similar quality of recognition, and seem to require a similar amount of time to process, indicating comparable cognitive effort.

Negation was analysed by Indian grammarian-philosophers from the very beginning of the linguistic thought in India. Over the centuries its understanding developed from purely formal to more semantically and pragmatically oriented analysis. Some of this analysis was influenced by concepts developed by other philosophical schools, which led to the change in the interpretation of negation in the school of Vyākaraṇa. The article first presents the early interpretations of negative expressions in the school of Sanskrit grammarians and then discusses the semantic shift that took place around the 11th century CE in the meaning of negation, especially the implicative ( paryudāsa) type. It analyses the passages from various grammatical and philosophical commentaries which introduce the concept of āropa (superimposition) to interpret negation.

This paper invites not to reflect on festivals as a celebration or a transgression but to observe them as «a play with» meaning and communication. The author considers the folklore as a genuine laboratory of observation of everyday life. He illustrates his analysis with the examples of the Binche Carnival (Belgium) and of Labour Day (1st of May) and gives an interpretation with G. Bateson’s concept of «play», as the English anthropologist had used to describe the play of animals at fighting. This leads the author to strongly insist on the small details of behaviours always imprinted with a “not” characteristic of ritual contexts.