All other forms of verbs inherently seem to have some kind of meaning but te
needs to be combined with things before it means anything. Does it mean
anything on its own that makes what it ends up doing with other things make
logical sense? Like, why do te kudasai and te iru/aru both use te?
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grammar meaning tense conjunctions auxiliaries
Does the ''te form'' literally mean something on its own?
"te" by itself have no meaning. There is canonical word of verbs and if You
add te in correct way it changes verb meaning. kaku - to write (canonical)
kaite - write (in "You write", used with friends, family, coworkers,...) kaite
kudasai - please write (more official form, used with people You don't know
well)
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In your examples, both the words following te are verbs and te are supposed to
be attaching verb phrases before them. 助詞(joshi)/particles(to which te
belongs) are grammatical tools and don't have meanings on their own. A meaning
is made when they are attached to other words and how they are constructed.

Of course, there are exclusions in idiomatic expressions like "で？ (何？)", but
these should construed as a shortened form of a phrase.
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Let me divide your question into two separate questions...

> All other forms of verbs inherently seem to have some kind of meaning but te
> needs to be combined with things before it means anything. Does it mean
> anything on its own that makes what it ends up doing with other things make
> logical sense?

When spoken, the "te" form of the verb (by itself, with nothing following it)
means the same as "te-kudasai":

  * 電話してください（Denwa shite kudasai）(Please call me.)
  * 電話して（Denwa shite）(Call me.)

Using "kudasai" is much more polite, but the meaning is the same. You will
never see the "te" form by itself in written Japanese (with nothing following
it) except if the text is quoting spoken Japanese.

> Like, why do te kudasai and te iru/aru both use te?

A verb's "te" form allows it to be combined with other verbs to either
conjugate the original verb (as in "te-iru" and "te-aru") or to sequentially
combine the verbs (e.g. "itte-kuru" means "go then come back"). Here "te"
plays a purely grammatical role and has no meaning by itself.

Note that "te-kudasai" is a combination of one verb's "te" form and [the
imperative form of the verb
"kudasaru"](http://mc2.civillink.net/bizkeigo/kudasarukudasai.html).
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> Does the ''te form'' literally mean something on its own?

## The "meaning" of the individual nuts and bolts of a language

It sounds like you're ultimately asking, _" what does **て** mean in verb
conjugations?"_

This is a good and valid question. The answer, however, is a bit more complex
than the question. :) An analogy would be like asking, _" what does **the**
mean?"_ It does have a meaning, but defining it usefully can be difficult. :)

To get an understanding of て itself, for me personally, I found it useful to
understand where it came from.

## Origins of ～て: completion of action

In traditional Japanese grammar, the ～て used as a verb conjugation ending is
called a 助動詞【じょどうし】 or "auxiliary verb". Auxiliaries in Japanese generally
also conjugate, and て itself started out as a conjugated form of auxiliary つ,
and the base meaning indicated that "the action of the verb is complete".

  * You might have run into this same つ as a verb ending in modern Japanese, in expressions like 行【い】き[つ]{●}戻【もど】り[つ]{●} ( _iki **tsu** modori **tsu**_ , "going and coming back" as a repeated action: "going back and forth"). This same つ reduplicated (doubled up) as つつ is another verb ending that indicates repetition or ongoing action, as in 事情【じじょう】が変【か】わり[つ]{●}[つ]{●}ある ( _jijō ga kawari **tsutsu** aru_, "circumstances **keep** chang **ing** , circumstances **continue to** change"). In these constructions, the "verb completion" meaning is still there, even though these uses indicate repetition -- one iteration of the action completes, and then the next one occurs in succession.

Looking back at て, this was both the 未然形【みぜんけい】 ( _mizenkei_ , "incomplete
form": basically, "hasn't happened yet") and the 連用形【れんようけい】 ( _ren'yōkei_ ,
"continuative form": basically, "grammatically continues on to some other
verb") of つ. The _mizenkei_ isn't relevant here, so we'll ignore that. The
_ren'yōkei_ is the important part. 連用【れんよう】 ( _ren'yō_ ) literally means 連【れん】
"attaches" to a 用言【ようげん】 "word that conjugates or inflects", such as verbs or
adjectives. In other words, て is the form you need to use when putting another
verb right afterwards, with that sense of completion. So `[VERB 1]`て`[VERB 2]`
means `[VERB 1]` _and then_ `[VERB 2]`.

### Side note about joining verbs

Note that this ～て + `[VERB]` construction is different from compound verbs. In
compound verb formations, you use the same _ren'yōkei_ , but of the verb
itself, and then you put another verb after that. Compare a couple examples:

  * 見【み】て送【おく】る → "[you] see, and (then) send", as two distinct actions.
  * 見【み】送【おく】る → "[you] see-send", that is, you "see someone on their way" as a single action.
  * 食【た】べて終【お】わる → "[you] eat, and (then) [something] finishes", as two distinct actions.
  * 食【た】べ終【お】わる → "[you] eat-finish" → "[you] finish eating", as a single action.
  * 乗【の】って換【か】える → "[you] ride, and (then) change [something]", as two distinct actions.
  * 乗【の】り換【か】える → "[you] ride-change" → "[you] change your ride, [you] transfer", as a single action.

## Related ending ～た: past tense

That sense of completion that's added by the auxiliary つ is also where we get
the modern past-tense ending ～た. Modern ～た is actually a contraction from
older ～て (this same て above) + あり (the old copula or "to be" verb): put
simply, ～てあり shortened to ～たり, and that shortened further to just ～た. The
basic idea of original form ～てあり was "the ～ action has **completed** , and now
this **is** the resulting state" -- or more directly, "`[VERB]` **-ed is** ".
Almost sounds like Yoda.
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