Stratificational is a language of the Nonchomskyan branch of the Linguistic family. It is spoken by a small and, by some estimates, dwindling number of native speakers--at least, the number seems to have declined somewhat since the late 1960's, although there are enough young people still using the language that it does not seem to be in danger of extinction any time in the near future. It's closest relatives within the Linguistic family appear to be Glossematic, Bloomfieldian (especially the Hockettsian dialect), and perhaps Systemic. Surface typological similarities between Stratificational and such Chomskyan dialects as Autolexical and Jackendoffian, while sometimes striking, are not indicative of genetic affiliation. Some geneticists (e.g., Sampson [1980]), have held that the similarities between Stratificational and Glossematic are sufficient to justify grouping them together into one Relational subfamily, but this grouping is still disputed.

A linguist attempting to gain a knowledge of the rudiments of Stratificational might be confused by, among other things, the multitude of names by which the language has been known. Stratificational, the name by which it first became known, enjoys the widest currency. Relational, besides being also applicable to Glossematic, is too similar to the name of the Chomskyan language Relational Grammar. Cognitive, another name recently proposed by certain prominent Stratificational speakers, is probably best restricted to one of the dialects. Dynamic Grammar is a specific register associated with use in computational contexts. Thus, even though not all modern Stratificational dialects are stratificational, the most common name remains the best alternative.

The language is made up of a number of dialects, some of whose speakers claim independent language status for their respective varieties. However, by the doctrine of mutual intelligibility, we are justified in calling them all one language. The major dialectal division is between Gleasonian and Lambikin, the former being a single, lesser known dialect, the latter comprising a number of dialects all more similar to one another than to Gleasonian. It may be assumed that the Lambikin dialects all descend from a common source, proto-Lambikin, probably spoken around 1966. The vast majority of Stratificational speakers speak one of the Lambikin dialects, which since 1966 have spread out from the Stratificational homeland in Connecticut to a number of places in North America. It was doubtless these migrations which caused the divergence between the Lambikin dialects, which were only in occasional contact after the late 1960's. Interestingly, while there are more Lambikin speakers overall, most Stratificationalists in the Urheim of Connecticut speak the Gleasonian dialect; i.e., most if not all the Lambikins emigrated.

Within the Lambikin branch, the major dialects are as follows.

1. Lockwoosian, also known as Lakediamonian, or, because of its conservative character, Paleo-Stratificational. This conservatism of this dialect spoken mostly in central Michigan furnishes our best evidence for the structure of proto-Lambikin.
2. German Imperial, also known as Nonstratificational Stratificational, spoken mostly in southeast Ontario.
3. Agnusmodernus, also known as Cognitive, spoken in southeast Texas.
4. Flamingo, also known as Itemized, spoken by members of the widely dispersed SIL tribe.

Stratificational is certainly one of the more exotic of the Linguistic languages in terms of expressive structures. However, Tagmemic analysis allows us to quickly produce a readable description of what, at first glance, appears to be utterly incomprehensible. Consider, for example, the example below, a naturally occurring text produced by the principle big old guy I got my data from:

To the uninitiated, this is sheer gobbledygook. It hardly looks like a human language at all. However, as the description below makes plain, it is a language, and hence fully susceptible to Tagmemic description.

Text = Node| Triangle + Line | Line + Node|Square Bracket + And |1q Dn-Ord Connector|1<-->2 Or | 2q Dn-Unord Line| Line + Word |I + Line| Line + Word |you + Conn|2<-->3 Terminal|3 Conn|2<-->4 Terminal| 4 Line| Line + Word |have + Line| Line + Word |two + Conn|1<-->5 Terminal| 5 Conn|1<-->6 Terminal| 6 Line| Line + Node|Square Bracket + Line| Line + Conn|1<-->7 Or | 7q Dn-Unord Conn|7<-->8 Word |cows + Line| Line + Word |cows + Line| Line + Terminal| 8 Conn|7<-->9 Terminal| 8 Conn|9<-->10 Word |husbands Terminal| 10

The Tagmemic description accurately represents exactly the information of the Stratificational text. As a final point, I might note that one of the proud claims of Stratificationalists is that their language is the best equipped of the Linguistic languages to convey information on any topic (see, for example, Pulju [1988]). However, the above proves that Tagmemic has sufficient flexibility to represent Stratificational texts, as one might expect of a Linguistic language which relates all texts to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior. Stratificationalists, on the other hand, have yet to demonstrate that their language is capable of producing descriptions of Tagmemic utterances. Until the unlikely advent of such a demonstration, we must conclude that Tagmemic is a more flexible and widely useful language than Stratificational.

Lockwood, David G., "A Comprehensive Bibliography of Stratificational Linguistics," an unpublished manuscript available from the author on request, includes a complete listing of published texts in Stratificational as well as work by other linguists about Stratificational. The number of texts in the language is not large (nowhere near as large even as that of such dead languages as Standard Theory Chomskyan), partly because the number of speakers is fairly small, partly because Stratificational had no writing system until one was introduced by the missionary linguist M.A.K. Halliday. The number of works about Stratificational is even smaller, but not insignificant. References made in the body of this paper can be found in full form in Lockwood.

	Language--The Failure of Modern Philosophy--Dr. Georg Strudelfest
	A Warning for Linguists--Keith Slater
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