In this article, we present a comparative analysis of the ontological assumptions about language at play within structural linguistics and trait theory. The ontological discussions demonstrate a fundamental incongruence between trait theory’s aim of description and its assumptions about language. This discussion guides a broader analysis of the structuring effect of the ontology of language within the study of subjectivity. We also develop the proposition that an integrative reading of structural linguistics and the phenomenology of speaking can be a constructive way to think coherently about language as system and language as subjectivity by insisting on speech as corporeal intention and reference and, thereby, lived.