“In its own right” does not mean that uttering a word removes every need for context or resolves every possible ambiguity. The point is that its capacity to signify a meaning is grounded in recognized assignment, not an accidental acoustic resemblance.
An ambiguous or homonymous word may require context to select one of several recognized senses. That does not remove the established connection between the word and each of those senses. Having a conventional significance and identifying the speaker’s specific intention are distinct tasks.
This distinction avoids the misleading conclusion that all contextual assistance destroys direct linguistic signification.