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How did medieval grammarians explain the process of turning thoughts into speech?

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Austrian postage stamp featuring a portrait of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, with German text above and below, and a denomination of 5 schillings. — Philosophy of language An Austrian stamp depicting Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Medieval grammarians, particularly the modistae who flourished between the 13th and 14th centuries, approached the relationship between thought and speech through the lens of "speculative grammar." Rather than viewing language as a simple naming process, they treated it as a speculum (mirror) of reality.1

The process of turning thoughts into speech was understood through the concept of "signification." Because a word cannot signify the nature of reality directly, it must represent a thing through specific "modes of signifying" (modi significandi). The grammarians argued that:1

Mental Apprehension: The mind apprehends things in the real world, and language serves to match these mental perceptions to reality.1
Modes of Signifying: Words stand for things by discriminating between various properties or modes. This discrimination is the basis for parts of speech and syntactic structure.1
Arbitrary Imposition: Signification is achieved by the imposition of words onto things, meaning the linguistic sign is fundamentally arbitrary.1

Ultimately, these scholars sought to explore how the structure of sentences reflects the nature of reality, viewing grammar as a discipline that bridges the gap between mental concepts and the external world.1