Plato, Cratylus, section 387c

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[387c] will he speak rightly, or will he succeed in speaking if he speaks in the way and with the instrument in which and with which it is natural for us to speak and for things to be spoken, whereas otherwise he will fail and accomplish nothing?

Hermogenes
I think the way you suggest is the right one.

Socrates
Now naming is a part of speaking, for in naming I suppose people utter speech.

Hermogenes
Certainly.

Socrates
Then is not naming also a kind of action, if speaking is a kind of action concerned with things?

Hermogenes
Yes.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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