ABSTRACT
This chapter includes a typology of conflicts preliminary to the description of living figures. The main distinction is that between contradiction, which is a formal kind of conflict, and inconsistency, which involves the substantive content of concepts. This distinction draws a clear line between oxymoron and the remaining figures of the plane of content and, in particular, metaphor and metonymy. Conceptual conflicts provide the semantic basis for metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. Between conceptual conflicts and metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, however, there is a correlation that is both partial and many-to-many. It is partial because these figures can be activated in the absence of any conflict; it is many-to-many because any kind of conflict can give rise to any kind of figure. Textual conflicts involve two dimensions: ideational and interpersonal. On the ideational level, the conflict is shifted from conceptual consistency to textual coherence. On the interpersonal level, the conflict involves the consistency of a speech act as a purposeful action.
