Imago writes: > I simply don't see how words can have associations but not meanings. > This > sentence is sophistical. > Suppose I pick up an apple and display it while saying, Apelsin! [ah-pel-seen] Apelsin! Apelsin! An hour from now, if I say to you "apelsin", the sound will remind you of the apple-image you now connect with the sound. Kids get conditioned the same way when we say, "Milk!" "Hot!" "Good boy!" "No!" Say "No!" to a child enough, and he'll get your idea. This is what's happening when someone "learns a language". He's not learning any "the meanings of". He is being conditioned by the juxtaposition of certain sounds with certain images, feelings, ideas in his head.
Now a confession. I just misled you: When you utter, "Apelsin!" to a Swede, the image that comes to his mind is not of an apple; it's the image of an orange. You probably thought you were learning "the meaning of" a Swedish word. I misled, but not about an alleged mind-independent "meaning" - only about the conditioned workings of a Swedish mind. That's my effort to demonstrate how words can have associations but not [mind-independent] meanings. Do you find nothing at all about it that's acceptable?
