The meaning of a sentence is mainly decomposable into the meanings of its parts and their relations to each other. In the denotative framing, words largely denote concepts that refer to specific classes of objects, events, or attributes in the world, and should be parsed as such. Others denote the position of things on your world-map. Some uses of words are enactive: ways to build or reveal momentum.
Primarily denotative language users are likely to assume that structural inconsistencies in speech are errors, when they’re often simply signs that the speech is primarily intended to be enactive. This is possible because humans initially learn language mimetically, and try to copy usage before understanding what it’s for. Some apparent uses of language’s denotative features may in fact be purely enactive. Even when speech can only be understood as a description of part of a model of the world, the context in which a sentence is uttered often implies an active intent, so if we only consider the direct meaning of the text, we will miss the most important thing about the sentence. Some uses of language do not simply describe objects or events in the world, but are enactive, designed to evoke particular feelings or cause particular actions. Many common uses of language, including some perfectly legitimate ones, are not well-described by "words have meanings." For instance, people who try to use promises like magic spells to bind their future behavior don't seem to consider the possibility that others might treat their promises as a factual representation of what the future will be like. So when I used the phrase “words have meanings” to describe one side of a divide between people who use language to report facts, and people who use language to enact roles, was I strawmanning the other side? Everyone agrees that words have meaning they convey information from the speaker to the listener or reader.