punctuational, a.
(pʌŋktjuːˈeɪʃənəl)
[f. punctuation n. + -al1.]
1. Pertaining to or consisting of punctuation.
| 1909 in Webster. 1963 D. 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. 1985 N. & 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.
| 1977 Paleobiol. III. 115 A punctuational view of change may have wide validity at all levels of evolutionary processes. 1981 Nature 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. 1983 Man XVIII. ii. 407/2 Palaeontologist Steven Stanley..argues that..evolution is punctuational not gradual. 1987 Nature 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.
| 1978 Science 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. 1978 Guardian Weekly 26 Nov. 1/3 The alternative theory is called..‘punctuationalism’. 1983 E. C. Minkoff Evolutionary Biol. xxi. 352/2 A number of invertebrate paleontologists have been won over to the punctuationalist viewpoint. 1985 D. Hull in D. Kohn Darwinian Heritage xxvi. 774 Disagreements between the punctuationalists and gradualists are a ‘debate within the Darwinian framework’. |