Due to confusion between the structural semantic properties of linguistic expressions and the message value given to speech acts by interpretation, a hybrid notion of metaphoric meaning has emerged. To overcome theoretical obstacles of philosophical and linguistic approaches to the study of metaphor, a grammatical definition of the latter is proposed, as the specific structural characteristics of metaphor are held to occupy a space of grammatical articulation between the extremes of conceptual conflict and discursive interpretation. The relation of analogy, otherwise empty, receives a definite conceptual framework from metaphor. A semantic description of metaphors addresses systematic properties of metamorphic utterances, justifying the significance of contradictory sentences on purely linguistic grounds, exploring the distribution of metaphorical focuses among grammatical and functional categories, and accounting for forms taken by metamorphic conceptual conflict in different grammatical and functional positions. (Copyright 1996, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.) (LLBA 1996, vol. 30, n. 1)