Whitehead and others have argued that traditional metaphysics fails precisely because of its obsession with language. Since it assumes the subject-verb-object mold of language, so also does it conform philosophical thought to this same mold. The attempt by Heidegger and others to escape into the poetry of the pre-Socratics is another essay at escape from the confines of such predatory predication.
Interestingly, this critique is quite right at least in its basic premise: western philosophy is intrinsically built upon language. Even a cursory examination of Plato’s dialogues reveals a surplus of linguistic ratiocination. See for example his argument in “Greater Hippias,” where Socrates asks mockingly whether, if two persons severally as “even,” each individually must be “even” as well.
This is not to say that Plato is unaware of his linguistic obsessions or that his distinctions boil down to mere language. See for example “Euthydemus,” where Plato makes fun of the use of empty linguistic distinctions. Nevertheless, it is true that to some extent Plato’s physics and metaphysics are rooted in subject-verb-object thinking. If “a beautiful maiden is beautiful,” he asks, “Then what is that by which she is beautiful?” Such important questions no doubt lead also into philosophical speculation on the copula itself.
OK, you ask, maybe Plato is linguistically-minded, but what alternative is there? It is indeed questionable whether attempts by such as Whitehead ever really break the mold of western philosophy. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that not all language functions in the same way. Japanese is not a subject-verb-object language but a topic-comment language; in many cases its phrases even lack a clear subject and merely provide a general topic and maybe a verb. While ga typically does mark a subject, some phrases only use wa, which really just marks a topic even though it can make a noun function like a subject in translation.
The difficulty I have is in deciding whether, how, and to what extent such linguistic-grammatical differences might make a real philosophical difference. On the one hand, I think these differences may be responsible in part for the tendency of Zen Buddhism to think in terms of disjointed poetic phrases and narrative bits. Japanese poetry likewise frequently flows poorly from sentence to sentence but communicates vivid images and hints of ideas. On the other hand, English is widely taught in Japan and the Japanese seem to show no difficult at all in switching to the subject-verb-object mode of words and thought. Does that not imply that the difference in language structure might be merely superficial, having little to no impact on how people actually think?