ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the main differences between consistent and conflictual figures that is, the semiotic regime, the priority of the expression, the implications for translation, and, in the presence of metaphors, and the orientation of the conceptual pressure. It refers to some insights supported by the observation of conflictual figures to the study of consistent figurative concepts and expressions. The discussion focuses mainly on metaphors, which illustrate the terms of the question in the most straightforward way; the essential conclusions, however, also hold for metonymies. The chapter seeks to draw a map of the tropological field. Traditional views and more recent approaches share the idea that the tropological field contains two pairs of families of tropes that share the same basic properties: metaphor and metonymy, on the one hand, lexical extensions and living figures on the other. Both metaphors and metonymies are assumed to be forms of transfer; lexical extensions are considered old figures that have undergone a process of conventionalization.
