ABSTRACT
The comprehensive study of figures ranging from sounds to complex meanings and textual and interpersonal configurations has shown that the correlation between functions, instrumentality, figurative valorization of linguistic resources, and creativity differs across the different planes and levels of the linguistic system. This chapter analyzes the complex relationship between forms and functions on the different planes and levels of the language system in order to open the way for the idea of a noninstrumental function, which is required in order to account for conceptual creativity. The study of figures supports the idea of Philosophical Grammar outlined in Prandi that is, the idea that the structural scaffolding of the meaning of complex expressions is the outcome of an interaction between a grammar of forms and a grammar of consistent concepts that is open to both instrumental and creative uses. The idea that creativity is the function of syntactic structures has implications for both syntax and functions.
