SETS AS A PRECONDITION. “We further suggest that verbal language emerged as a primitive form of set theory in that a set of percepts that are associated with each other or are similar are linked together with a word acting as a concept that unites all the members of that set. In a certain sense the primitive form of set theory we just described seems to be a pre-condition for the emergence of verbal language.”
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-59177-9_13