| 释义 |
punctuational, a.|pʌŋktjuːˈeɪʃənəl|
[f. punctuation n. + -al1.]
1. Pertaining to or consisting of punctuation.
1909in Webster. 1963D. B. Thomas in Brown & Foote Early Eng. & Norse Stud. 195 There is little correlation between contemporary preceptive punctuational practice and the phonetics of any Western European language. 1985N. & Q. Sept. 419/1 What has it come to, one may wonder, when teachers of literature have to handle the term with these punctuational tongs?
2. Biol. Of, pertaining to, or in accordance with punctuationalism; (of evolution or an evolutionary change) taking place rapidly, esp. in a single generation or a series of steps occurring relatively close together.
1977Paleobiol. III. 115 A punctuational view of change may have wide validity at all levels of evolutionary processes. 1981Nature 1 Jan. 13/2 The deduction that species selection is the sole cause of trends rests..on the..assumption that punctuational changes are as likely to occur in a direction opposite to that of the trend as parallel to it. 1983Man XVIII. ii. 407/2 Palaeontologist Steven Stanley..argues that..evolution is punctuational not gradual. 1987Nature 10 Dec. 516/1 If punctuational changes are random, then the main features of evolution are not the summed consequences of changes caused by selection within populations.
Hence punctuˈationalism n., (belief in or advocacy of) the theory of punctuated equilibrium; punctuˈationalist n., one who believes in or advocates the theory of punctuationalism; also attrib. or as adj.
1978Science 6 Jan. 58/3 A convinced punctuationalist, he contrasts bivalves and mammals to support..the hypothesis that rate of evolution is determined by rate of speciation. 1978Guardian Weekly 26 Nov. 1/3 The alternative theory is called..‘punctuationalism’. 1983E. C. Minkoff Evolutionary Biol. xxi. 352/2 A number of invertebrate paleontologists have been won over to the punctuationalist viewpoint. 1985D. Hull in D. Kohn Darwinian Heritage xxvi. 774 Disagreements between the punctuationalists and gradualists are a ‘debate within the Darwinian framework’. |