First association was to extend the modality of text tokens to concept tokens which could be (logical) relationships. Are you aware of similar works?
When we speak we give a string. When we think we don't have to use a string. But we do have to have a functionality to map something that has no single ordering to something that has an ordering (externalization) - a sentence. And vice versa we have a functionality to turn strings into things without a specific ordering (internalization) - thoughts.