I’ve previously thought a bit about this question (gave my basic take on this here earlier this year). The problem with figuring out some such questions is that there are only very few core references to jhana in the suttas. Plus later commentaries don’t seem to take a consistent track.
Without SN 36.11 I suspect the argument that ordinary verbal thoughts can occur in first jhana would actually be a tenable one (going with the more obvious translations of V&V and based on the often occurring distinction of first jhana being connected with rapture&pleasure born of seclusion as opposed to born of unification for the others). However, the existence of SN 36.11 and its reference to the cessation of speech in the first jhana IMO cannot be ignored and this does necessitate some circle squaring.
IMO MN 44 (the series of questions to Visakha) and its discussion of the verbal, bodily and mental formations does indicate one possible viable way of doing this. One viewpoint of jhana is as the successive stilling of the verbal, bodily and mental formations. MN 44 equates the verbal formation with V&V. The verbal formation seems to be quietening in 1st jhana with the cessation of speech, but it’s not until the 2nd jhana, which is described as “noble silence” in several places, when actually V&V ceases. I also speculated in my older linked post that something similar happens for the bodily formation at 4th jhana and 1st immaterial jhana (quietened at 4th but the associated formation only truly ceasing at the 1st immaterial jhana) and similarly later on for the mental formation.
An interesting quote from MN 44 is:
"First one applies thought and sustains thought, and subsequently one breaks out into speech; that is why applied thought and sustained thought are the verbal formation.
I think that indicates how closely linked V&V is to speech (sitting just beneath its surface).
Someone once, in a non-Buddhist context, gave me the following interesting definition: “Words are symbols of images of experience” and “thus twice removed from reality”.
I think there’s a lot to that. From that perspective, thought has two levels. There’s the third-hand case of words/symbols (whether spoken or mentally expressed). Then underlying that is the image (not necessarily visual I guess) which is still nonetheless second-hand. Then, apart from both of these, there’s the direct original experience/reality that the thought was representing (second- or third-hand).
My attempt to square the circle is that the word-based/symbolic third-hand level quietens in 1st jhana, which may be why actual sounds are described as a thorn to the first jhana in AN 10.72 (perhaps hearing words and speech can threaten to re-activate this level?). However, the second-hand “image” level of thought may still be there (and renunciation, non-aversion and harmlessness be still subject to less coarse thought and examination). Finally, even this V&V quietens in the second jhana and just experience (without thought) becomes the focus (so V&V, having just being suppressed, is still described as a thorn to second jhana).
My squaring of the circle would be to divide thought up into a coarse speech/symbol-based level and a finer V&V level, which may have this thought and examination, with the verbal formation really only ceasing and “noble silence” reached in the 2nd jhana when both have quieted. My theory anyway (though I’ll defer to other people’s probably far far more extensive actual experience! 
).