ABSTRACT
This observation makes it seem that the meaning of a peripheral word is at least partly an image of the type of thing that it stands for. This has given rise to theories that say that a word stands for some sort of image. These theories run into problems because images are often too specific. An image of a chair, for example, either has arms or not. If it doesn't, how can you call an armchair a chair? And if it does, how can you call an arm-less chair a chair? For more abstract words, images get harder and harder to construct; try justice, emotion, thing for example. Interestingly enough, most people do not perceive images with very abstract words such as thing, place, action, while they do see images for very concrete words, e.g. dachshund, Mercedes, snowman. This fits, however, with the idea that an image is only part of the meaning of a word.
