STOCHASTIC
(Statistics) From Greek στόχος, 'aim' or 'guess'. The property of being well-described by a random probability distribution (Lexico UK English Dictionary ?). Stochasticity and randomness are technically distinct concepts: the former refers to a modeling approach, while the latter describes phenomena; in everyday conversation, however, these terms are often used interchangeably. In probability theory, the formal concept of a stochastic process is also referred to as a random process.
 Non-deterministic approaches in language studies are largely inspired by the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, for example, in functionalist linguistic theory, which argues that competence is based on performance (Newmeyer 2001, Bybee 1999). This distinction in functional theories of grammar should be carefully distinguished from the langue and parole distinction. To the extent that linguistic knowledge is constituted by experience with language, grammar is argued to be probabilistic and variable rather than fixed and absolute. This conception of grammar as probabilistic and variable follows from the idea that one's competence changes in accordance with one's experience with language. Though this conception has been contested (Chomsky 1959), it has also provided the foundation for modern statistical natural language processing (Manning and Schutze 1999) and for theories of language learning and change (Bybee 2007). | Wikipedia, 2025

STOCHASTIC GRAMMAR

1. (Grammar) Newmeyer (2003) has argued against models of mental grammars that incorporate probabilistic information (henceforth, stochastic grammar). | Brady Clark, 2005
2. (Example)
    ○ Building on Schwarzschild's (1999) optimality-theoretic treatment of accent placement, we propose that accent placement is best accounted for by a stochastic constraint-based grammar along the lines of proposals made by Anttila (1997) and Boersma (1997). | James German, Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert, and Stefan Kaufmann, 2006
    ○ Stochastic Grammars are the most usual models in Syntactic Pattern Recognition. Both components of a Stochastic Grammar, the characteristic grammar and the probabilities attached to the rules, can be learnt automatically from training samples.
    On the other hand, with Stochastic Grammars, the patterns must be represented as strings over a finite set of symbols. However, the most natural representation in many Syntactic Pattern Recognition applications (i.e. speech) is as sequences of vectors from a feature vector space, that is, a continuous representation. | Francisco Casacuberta, 1996

STOCHASTIC LINGUISTICS
(Computational) Deals with the probabilities of certain patterns occurring in natural language. Stochastic techniques, such as n-gram and latent semantic analysis help us identify and classify patterns in natural language, through which we are able to compare, search and analyze documents in a language independent manner. | Dan Stocker, 2010

STOCHASTIC O.T.
(Phonology) One influential approach to modeling linguistic variation in Optimality Theory is Stochastic OT (Boersma 1998/1999), Boersma and Hayes 2001). In this framework, constraint rankings correspond to points on a number line. While the exact numerical values assigned to the constraints are arbitrary, a greater value corresponds to a higher ranking, and so domination relations between constraints can be represented numerically.
 Stochastic OT models variation by adding an element of unpredictability to the ranking relationships between constraints. In the grammar of a particular language, each constraint has an intrinsic and consistent ranking value. However, every time an input is mapped to an output by the grammar, the ranking value for each constraint is perturbed by a noise component (stated informally, for each constraint in the grammar, a small amount is added to or subtracted from the ranking value), resulting in a value known as the selection point for the constraint in question. The noise component is drawn from a normal distribution whose mean is the constraint's ranking value and whose standard deviation is some constant value, often set at 2.0 units by convention; each constraint's selection point will be within three standard deviations (±6.0 units) of the ranking value in more than 99% of all input-output mappings. Boersma and Hayes (2001) propose that all constraints have the same standard deviation for their noise distribution, because the noise function is part of the grammar as a whole and not the property of an individual constraint. The proposal that the noise distribution is the same for all constraints has crucial consequences for variation involving markedness scales. | Jennifer Smith and Elliott Moreton, 2011

STR-RETRACTION

1. (Sociolinguistics; Phonology) Or, (str)-retraction. An ongoing sound change in English in which /s/ retracts towards [ʃ] in the context of a /str/ cluster. This change appears to be quite widespread, occurring across the US, UK, and New Zealand. (Durian 2007, Gylfadottir 2015, Lawrence 2000, Shapiro 1995) | Eric Wilbanks, 2016
2. (Sociolinguistics; Phonology) Some speakers of English have been reported to palatalize, or retract, /s/ before /t ɹ/, leading /s/ in this context to sound similar or identical to a palatal fricative [ʃ] (e.g., pronouncing street as [ʃt ɹit] or distract as [dɪʃt ɹækt]). Reports of retracted (str), as I will refer to this variable, have come from studies examining speakers in a range of English-speaking locations. This includes various places in the United States: from Georgia (Phillips 2001), southern Louisiana (Rutter 2011), and Columbus, Ohio (Durian 2007), to Philadelphia (Labov 1984), where it was first mentioned in the sociolinguistic literature. It has also been observed in the U.K. (Glain 2014), in location-specific studies of Estuary English (Bass 2009) and Cockney English (Altendorf 2003), as well as in New Zealand (Lawrence 2000). Most of these studies refer to retracted (str) as an innovative variant, and a few make direct claims about its status as a change in progress toward this pronunciation and away from standard /s/ in this context. | Duna Gylfadottir, 2015

STRATIFICATIONAL GRAMMAR

1. (Stratificational Grammar) 
   Sydney M. Lamb, Outline of Stratificational Grammar (1966)
    
   • Four necessary levels of sentence analysis:
     • The sememic stratum: structure of clauses and sentences.
     • The lexemic stratum: structure of phrases.
     • The morphemic stratum: structure of word forms.
     • The phonemic stratum: syllable structure.
   • Each stratum has its elementary units.
   • Each stratum has its own combinatorial pattern.
   • Strata are hierarchically related:
     • Each is realized by the elements in the level structurally beneath it.
     • Without making use of rules that convert one entity into another.
   
    | Markéta Lopatková, 2023
2. (Stratificational Grammar) A model of linguistic structure. We can visualize the overall concept as a multistory building connected by a complex series of stairways. The arrangement of rooms and hallways on each floor is that stratum's tactic pattern, and the manner in which the stairways lead from various parts of one floor to various parts of another (and all the way up and down) is the grammar's realization pattern. Among the strata, we find at the top the semantic or semiological strata defining relationships of meaning, then the syntactic and morphological (together the grammatical) relationships of order, then the phonological and phonetic relationships of sounds and their feature components at the bottom.
    The patterns relating all of the points on and among all of the strata are visualized as lines and nodes. The nodes make use of only three logical primes: AND (conjunction), OR (disjunction) and order (precedence).
   • In an unordered AND, x is realized with y in no particular order.
   • In an ordered AND, x is realized with y, such that x precedes y.
   • In an unordered OR, either x or y is realized, with no preference for one or the other.
   • In an ordered OR, x is realized given condition z (from either that stratum's tactic pattern or from some other stratum), and otherwise y is realized.
   
    It is important to note that these nodes, although they are often called entities, are not physical entities per se, but rather are relationships among relationships. | Toby D. Griffin, 2010
3. (Stratificational Grammar) A structural framework developed by Sydney Lamb in the 1960s that aims to provide an account of the structure of language, the relationship between meaning and speech.
    The framework is called stratificational because one of its chief features is its treatment of linguistic structure as comprising several structural layers or strata. Its earlier form, in the late fifties and early sixties, followed the tradition of structural linguistics in treating the structure as composed of linguistic elements and their relationships. In the mid-sixties, work on the relationships among linguistic units revealed that when the relationships are fully plotted, the units actually disappear, so that the entire structure consists of a network of relationships.
    In keeping with the idea of stratification, the network as a whole can be considered to consist of multiple subnetworks, called stratal systems. Operation of the system, for speaking and understanding, takes the form of activation passing through the network. Multiple pathways are invariably active in parallel at any time. By the end of the twentieth century, stratification and the relationship of realization had become widely recognized, and the theory's distinctiveness lay in its focus on the conception of linguistic structure as a network of relationships. Accordingly, it increasingly became referred to as relational network theory rather than stratificational theory. Beginning in 1971 it was also called cognitive linguistics, but when that term became more widely used for a variety of other theories during the eighties and nineties, the more distinctive term neurocognitive linguistics began to be used. This latter term is in keeping with the hypothesis that relational networks are related to neural networks of the brain. (Christie 1973/1977, Lamb 1966, 1971, 1999) | Glottopedia, 2017
4. (Stratificational Grammar) In Lamb's current formulation of the theory, all natural languages have between four and six separate structural levels comprising code-like systems through which the transducing processes of language are mediated. Explication of the model is generally in terms of six strata, the number posited for English (Lamb 1966). The six-stratum arrangement is expressed as a three by two system consisting of three major language components of two strata each. These strata are, thus, within the same domain and, presumably, more closely related to each other than to the strata of the other components. All languages have the three components, though not necessarily two strata in each.
    The three components are: phonology, containing the hypophonemic and phonemic strata; grammar, containing the morphemic and lexemic strata; and semology, containing the sememic and hypersememic strata. Each stratum has its own tactics (syntax) and its own inventory and, though they are structured in parallel fashion, they are not isomorphic. The semological component is adjacent to the upper interface (permeable by experience), the phonological component adjacent to the lower interface (permeable by sound), and grammar mediates between the two. (The vertical arrangement, however, is merely a convention.) The system constitutes a bidirectional, hierarchical network and the processes of encoding and decoding are converses of each other. (Gleason 1964). | Leila Margaret Hougham, 1970
5. (Stratificational Grammar) According to Algeo (1968), most grammarians have been writing stratificational grammars without knowing it because they have dealt with units that are related to one another, but not simply as a whole to its parts, or as a class to its members. The question, then, is not whether a grammar is stratified but whether it is explicitly stratified. This paper discusses the model of language that is being developed by Sydney Lamb and H. A. Gleason, Jr. It is explicitly stratified and recognizes six strata (hypersememic, sememic, lexemic, morphemic, phonemic, and hypophonemic) grouped into three major structural components of two strata each: semology, grammar, and phonology respectively. Collectively, the strata are a system or code for relating communicative content at the "top" to vocal expression at the "bottom". Each stratum consists of an inventory of its characteristic units or emes, and a set of tactic rules that specify how the emes combine with one another on that stratum. Finally, strata are connected to one another by realization rules, which describe how the emes of one stratum are linked to those of another. Any text, for example a sentence, exists on all the strata simultaneously. On each stratum the text will be a structure of emes ordered by the appropriate tactic rules, but on each stratum it will differ in structure. | ?, ?

STRATIFICATIONAL ORDERING

1. (Stratificational Grammar) A language has several layers of structure. These may be thought of as existing on top of one another, as it were. In a stratificational framework one views the entire structure as present at one time, and one encounters different structural layers or levels instead of different derivational periods in a fictional time span. We speak of these various levels as differing from one another in height. Higher levels are closer to meaning; lower levels are closer to expression. | Sydney M. Lamb, 2004
2. (Example)
    ○ Descriptive phonologists find evidence for more than two levels of alternation in phonology (e.g., Chafe 1968), but mutation rules impose their own notational ordering requirements independent of the linguistic structure and therefore cannot be used as a basis for arguing about how much stratificational ordering is needed if one uses a realizational format. (Lamb 1971) | Glottopedia, 2017

STRATUM

1. (Systemic Functional Linguistics) Most approaches to linguistics recognize some kind of layering in language, to represent different kinds and levels of abstraction. SFL now recognises two kinds of layering: stratal and metafunctional. The following are regarded as strata: context, semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology, phonetics and, for written language, graphology (sometimes called orthography). The metafunctions are: ideational (subdivided into experiential and logical), interpersonal and textual. The strata are assumed to be hierarchically ordered, context being the highest stratum and phonetics the lowest; the metafunctions are assumed to be in parallel with each other. | Margaret Berry, 2017
2. (Stratificational Grammar) Or, stratal system. One of several layers of structure in the linguistic information system. Each stratum consists of lines and nodes organized into nections, the fundamental modules of network structure. Each stratum has distinctive patterns of arrangement of nections. Different versions of relational network theory have recognized different numbers of such stratal systems, but these differences amount to variations on a general theme of three major systems, phonological, lexico-grammatical, and semantic-conceptual. Relations between strata are called realizational.
    Each stratal system includes a tactic pattern, controlling the combinations appropriate to that system. According to one common breakdown of realizational levels, these patterns are phonotactics (the structure of syllables and phonological words), morphotactics (the structure of words and grammatical phrases), lexotactics (the structures of clauses and sentences), and semotactics (the structure of thoughts, ideas, procedures, rituals, etc.)
    Before 1961, strata were called levels, but the term was found to be too ambiguous, since it was being used by linguists in many different ways. The term realizational level, however, is still a valid synonym. (Lamb 2004, 2007) | Glottopedia, 2017
3. (Examples)
    ○ To compare L₂₁ and L₂₂₂ in a diachronic way, the common features of the two languages will trace back to node L₂ which has two different sources. That is to say, L₂₁ and L₂₂₂ either descend from their common protolanguage L, or borrow from the dominant dialect C. L–L₂–L₂₂–L₂₂₁ demonstrates the internal evolution from dialect L to L₂₂₁, and therefore represents what we call the native stratum. The stratum that borrows from another dialect, C in this case, is called the borrowing stratum. The purpose for historical strata analysis is to peel away the loan strata so as to show the native stratum, therefore, paving the way for the application of historical comparative method. | Pan Wuyun, 2016
    ○ Dialect words can help to identify the location of people who use them. There are four major dialectal varieties in Great Britain: Lowland Scotch, Northern, Central (Midland) and Southern. There are three major dialectal varieties in the USA: Midwestern (Central), Southern, New England. This classification doesn't include lots of minor local dialects which differ either on the phonetic level or the lexical one. Each of the mentioned groups is very important for linguists as well as the whole stratum of sub-neutral words is of great value for linguistics. | Д. Ч. Кочерго, И. Р. Чепикова, 2012
    ○ The domains of application in applied linguistics have changed considerably since the early 1960s. In most of these domains, the fundamental property of language as a resource for making meaning has increasingly been foregrounded. This approach recognizes, amongst other dimensions of language, its multi-stratal character, i.e. that a given instance of language consists of patterns of meaning (semantics), realized by patterns of wording (grammar), realized by patterns of sounding (phonology) or writing (graphology). The co-selection of these patterns both construes and expresses the kind of social context in which the language operates. There has not yet been a register of English described from the point of view of all four strata. | Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, Annabelle Lukin, David G. Butt, Chris Cleirigh, and Christopher Nesbitt, 2005
    ○ Japanese has an extensive body of sound-symbolic expressions commonly known as giongo / gitaigo / giseigo 'mimetic words'. These expressions form a cohesive system with distinct phonological characteristics such that phonologists consider them to form one of the four major vocabulary strata, along with the Yamato (native), Sino-Japanese, and foreign strata (McCawley 1968, Itô and Mester 1995). Yet, in spite of this standing as a distinct vocabulary stratum, the sound-symbolic stratum has been least utilized in Japanese historical linguistics as a source for internal reconstructions. | Shoko Hamano, 2000
    ○ In recent work, Packard (1990, 1992, 1993) has presented a variety of arguments that Mandarin morphology should be analyzed in terms of a stratum-ordered model of the kind proposed in Lexical Phonology and Morphology (Pesetsky 1979, Kiparsky 1982, Mohanan 1982, 1986/2012). | Richard Sproat and Chilin Shih, 1993
    ○ From a synchronic viewpoint, however, lexical stratification may be held to deal with structural divisions in the vocabulary (whether they result from historical borrowing or not). We shall adopt this usage here, and reserve the term stock for groupings based purely on provenience. On a structural basis, we can readily identify a Sino-Japanese stratum and a Western stratum in the modern Japanese vocabulary: in these two cases, that is, stock and stratum largely coincide. We are concerned to show here that, for items of native stock, there are strong structural grounds for distinguishing an expressive stratum from a regular or neutral ('nonexpressive') stratum. | A.E. Backhouse, 1983
    ○ Stratificational theory is here called cognitive linguistics since it aims to provide a model of the information system that enables a person to speak his language. The theory began in the mid-fifties with a three-stratum model, and it added a fourth stratum, above the classical morphemic level, in 1961. During the sixties a series of revisions occurred, not all of which involved direct progress. The paper concludes with a brief introduction to the current model, which has three grammatical strata and one phonological stratum for the language proper, plus a conceptual system containing all of the individual's knowledge (other than his language). | Sydney M. Lamb, 1971

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