The "articulation of concepts" is the element of continuity in the philosophy of Max Black, mostly oriented to redefine the limits of language including issues - as the status of metaphor - that were supposed to have no place in philosophy. This paper examines one of Max Black's earlier writings about philosophical analysis in order to find some theorical pre-conditions of his study of metaphor. More specifically, here it is to be shown how the emerging concept of «significance» leads Black to justify metaphor as a semantic transformation, dissociating from riductionist logicism. Finally, it will be mentioned the philosophical significance of metaphor emerging in Black's, since it makes explicit some features of the constitution of meaning.