Les métaphores en “de“. Enjeux formels et conceptuels

Metaphors in ‘de’ are a little-explored area compared with other tropical configurations. Moreover, in most cases their examination remains partial and fails to illustrate the totality of the types of interaction they can produce. In fact, as Prandi observes, this typology is characterised by an ‘under-determined’ formal structure, capable of expressing ‘an open, virtually infinite number of connections, which become clearer under the pressure of the content of the terms and, ultimately, of the co-text and/or context in which the expression is inserted’ (Prandi 1992: 46). This study shows that the sub-coding (Prandi 2017: 40-41) that characterises them at a formal level opens the way to different interpretative outcomes, which can oscillate between coherent and conflicting options and, in this case, between various types of conflict. Instead of becoming a lacuna, resistance to univocal determinations transmutes these structures - when they conceal complex conflictual contents - into unknown territories that we will never finish exploring.